Faces in the Passageway
by Meredith Bronwen Mallory
Summary: Vader finds himself facing his wife much sooner, and in a different way, than he ever expected.
1. The Time Before

Author's Notes: Again, this is independent from "From Where Ever I Am To You" and "Without Darkness...". I have six pages of Chapter One that are giving me absolute fits, not to mention eight pages of 'From Where Ever..". I think I'll go work on something else for a while. ^_~ 

Feedback is always appreciated! Please, I beg of you, tell me what you think. ^_^ 

Also, please note that this story was originally posted on the 'Skywalking' mailing list, under the title 'Hourglass'.   
~Meredith 

Legal Disclaimer: Do I look like I'm in charge? ... Didn't think so. 

Personal Disclaimer: You mean you *don't* hear the voices? ^_~ 

_"If you go forward, I will meet you there..." - "Frozen Love" by Buckingham Nicks _

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Faces in the Passageway  
Prologue/?  
by Meredith Bronwen Mallory  
mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com  
http://www.demando.net/  
-------------------------------------------  


"Ever thought about dying?" It was a strange question, asked by a voice strangled in the back of his throat, but Anakin was in a strange mood. He somehow felt it needed to be asked. 

It was one of those days when such a question could be posed- the wind moved lazily, and the sun was not a single point of light but a sort of diffused illumination. Quiet rested over the small veranda where Anakin and his wife had ensconced themselves after lunch, comfortable that -- at least for today-- there were no obligations to fulfill, no appointments to attend. He smiled just a little as he turned from the work bench, interested in her reaction. Padme` was a woman who used her whole body for expression, and Anakin found it fascinating to watch.  
"It's funny you ask that," her face was relaxed, smiling without actually doing so, but he saw curiosity in the shift of her posture.  
"Oh?" he asked, absently placing his tools back in their proper order. From her place on the lounge nearby, Padme` nodded and held up the book she was reading. "The Nubian Holy Text," Anakin read, laughing, "I sure know how to pick 'em, huh?"  
"You do," her face sobered a bit, and she closed the book completely. "I have thought about death. A lot, actually," her voice was quiet, her eyes staring into his own, "What about you?"  
"Not much, to tell the truth," he replied, resisting the urge to move from the bench to the lounge. From the corner of his mind, the Dark perked up and began its usual little whispers. Anakin flinched inwardly; and here he thought he was having a good day. "But recently-- I don't know. A young Padawan died in an accident the other day, and I suppose it affected me more than I realized."  
His wife's face was genuinely sympathetic as she rested her chin in her hands, "I hadn't heard about it, Ani. I'm sorry."   
He shook his head, "It was no one I knew, at least not that well. But it was a messy death, nothing I'd wish for anybody." For a brief moment, every line in Padme's body was unreadable, and he wondered in a panic if perhaps she *could* hear that natering little shadow in his mind. Could she know? 

"What *do* the Jedi believe, anyway?" she asked, immediately setting his fears to rest. To Anakin, the relief was as tangible as the small breeze. Certainly, he didn't what her to know about the Dark, the shadows. He didn't want them anywhere *near* her.  
"Mostly that, after you die, you become one with the living Force," the response was correct, rote and memorized. He heard it almost every day. "And then?" Padme inquired innocently.  
"What do you mean 'then'?" Even through his confusion, Anakin felt a curious warmth wind itself through him. Padme was resting herself against the arm of the lounge, brown eyes wide, mouth partly open, her attention completely focused on Anakin alone. He loved moments like these, when he felt he had her all to himself. For just a minute, the Dark quieted and the shadows scattered, only to come back together again.  
"You become one with the living Force, and then what happens?"  
His brow furrowed, "That's it, I guess."  
"Wow," she said, considering. "There's something... I'm surprised the Jedi don't have a more defined belief."  
"What do *you* believe?" he inquired, suddenly realizing that was the question he'd been meaning to ask the entire time. He wondered why it seemed so important now. 

"You'll think it's strange," Padme's smile was small as she sat up, stretching. Silently, Anakin willed her to stay on the lounge. If she were to come over, hair down and lips parted, they might get distracted.  
"No, really," he insisted, "I want to know." There was an overwhelming urge to understand this part of her, but it didn't particularly alert him. Early in their marriage he'd nearly driven her crazy with questions, wanting to know everything about her. And yet he found that the more he seemingly uncovered, the more uncharted territory rolled out before him, beckoning. Padme was a mystery; a loving, comfortable, familiar mystery.  
"I think we come back," she stated simply. Her head tilted to the side, awaiting his reaction.  
"Come back?" he managed.  
"As someone new," her voice was excited, her hands moving to illustrate the point, "Of course, you don't remember what happened before, but that's the point."  
"The point of what?"  
"Coming back, of course."  
"But..." he closed his eyes briefly, "Why come back at all?"  
"So you can do it over again. Fix the mistakes you made before, make new ones, have different experiences," her eyes were closed as she leaned back against the lounge, and he realized that she really did believe what she was saying. "And... and maybe see people again."  
"If I have to fix my mistakes, I think I'll be at this a while," he joked lightly, then allowed his voice to take on a serious note. "But how would you know if you don't remember?" he asked. His logical mind kicked in, wanting to examine the belief system as one would the engine of a podracer.  
To make sure it worked.  
"Some people think little children remember, bits and pieces. My grandmother told me once about a girl she knew as a child. The girl insisted for the longest time that she was waiting for her Ara to come be with her."   
"Her Ara?"   
"Her husband," Padme clarified, "But most children forget by the time they hit seven or eight. At least, clearly- some people think even adults remember a little." Silence hovered between them, loose and comfortable like the barest touch. The Dark began its insane mouthings, but Anakin ignored it, focusing his attention on his tools. He felt Padme's eyes on him, but it was a while before he said anything. He almost thought she went back to her reading. 

"Have you ever remembered anything?" he asked as soon as it occurred to him. He frowned the minute the words left his lips, shaking his head before looking up at his wife.  
"Not really," she licked her lips, lightly, "At least not that I can recall now. Though, when I was little, I had a horrible fear of the harvest droids. I used to have this nightmare that I was an older woman and had gotten my hand caught in one. That might have been something," she shrugged, "then again, maybe not. Have you ever remembered anything?"  
"No," he said with certainty, though he really had no memory either way. "Assuming there is such a thing, I think people *should* remember."  
"Really?" her brown eyes held the barest note of sadness, "Would you want to remember all the times *you've* messed it up?"  
"On second thought..." he laughed, throwing his hands up. "Why haven't we talked about this before?"  
"I suppose after all the *other* trouble we went through to get married, it didn't really seem like an issue."  
"I suppose not."  
"Besides, I don't think we'd let a little thing like this get between us," her eyes held a slight naughty smile.  
"Definitely not." He winked back at her, before turning back to his tool bench. 

The conversation died painlessly, replaced by the slight hum of her presence and the sound of distant wind-chimes. Internally, Anakin turned her words over. The more he thought about it, the more the idea fascinated him, and the less he paid attention to his work on the small speeder engine stacked beside him. Slowly, the Dark began gnawing away at the happiness, as it always did. Sighing, Anakin turned his focus to combating its ever increasing monopoly on his mind, frustrated with his inability to keep control. Such infirmity in a Padawan was understandable, but a full grown Knight should not loose his grasp so completely. It frightened him more than he cared to admit, souring the brilliant Nubian afternoon. He swallowed hard, bitting his lip slightly as he dodged the Dark and tried to occupy his mind with other things. There was some question he still needed to ask, but he was unsure of how to word it. 

"Would you wait for me?" again, it came out without a thought, but Anakin was suddenly grateful. He might not have asked it otherwise.  
"Pardon?"  
"If what you say is true-- would you come back for me, or wait for me?" His eyes swept over Padme's form, trying to read her response. He'd never questioned their love before, and he certainly wasn't doing so now, but this seemed of an entirely different order. At first he thought it might be a question of loyalty, but he realized it wasn't that either. His wife rose from the lounge, her hair and waist swaying ever so slightly before she slipped into his lap. It seemed to him that her smile, now wide and full, held all the mysteries in creation. Lightly, she brushed her hand across his brow, and he stared up at her silently.  
"Of course I'd wait," her voice was low, the voice she used when swearing promises as Amidala. He understood that she took this just as seriously, indeed, more so. "I'd come back for you, if you took too long." Absurdly relieved, he held her loosely for the longest time, resting his head on her shoulder. 

He forgot about the promise, of course. A lifetime passed and he became someone else without dying entirely. The fire, the pit on Sullust and the ultimate betrayal swept the peace of that Nubian afternoon away. He was a different man, a man who held only the smallest shards of what he'd been prior, and if he thought of Padme at all it was always in pieces. Broken moments. 

He only remembered when he saw her die. 


	2. For No One Remembers Her Name

Author's Notes I do hope you enjoy the story! Feedback is very much desired...

~Meredith

Date Begun: August 4th, 2001

Date Finished: November 22nd, 2001

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Faces in the Passageway 1/?

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

http://www.demando.net/

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You need to keep running. Don't look back, don't think about where you've

been or what you're running from, it doesn't matter. Just keep moving. Your

destination is a vague thing- as long as the enemy isn't there, as long as

He isn't there, it doesn't matter where you go.

But you're tried. You want to stop, because you're tried, because you're

so out of breath it's all you can hear, and your legs feel as though

they're made of glass. You're so cold, you've never been so cold in your

life, but its a liquid thing and you feel it running along your body. It's

snowing, white all around you, a white more pure than even the armor of

your enemies (but don't think about that, don't think about that). Blindly

you reach out, and your hands touch on the wall of a building. You lean

against it to steady yourself, but it doesn't yield. There's nothing to

sink into, no place to go. Why have you stopped running?! The bricks are

ice to the touch, you can feel them through the heavy cloak and gown. You

close your eyes, lean more of your weight against it anyway. You breath

steadies itself, as much as you allow it. This is nice, you think. All you

want to do is rest here...

No, no, keep running! If you stop, you'll think, so please keep running.

Please...

You don't run, you're just too tired. All you've ever done in your life is

run- everything else is a dream, unreal, something you made up to convince

yourself you've got someplace to go. Maybe you should turn around, walk

(yes, walk; slow, stately movement...) back, try to find Him. You can

reason with Him, maybe. It's not too late. Maybe you don't have to give Him

up, you can still...

Don't be an idiot! If it was just you, maybe you could do that, it'd only

be your blood. But think of the children..

The children!

Now you are running again, not matter how much it hurts. You curse

yourself, because the fear is real again. Fool! Your husband is dead. That

thing they raised out of the grave is something else entirely. You have to

forget they have anything to do with each other, so that your sweet babies

can have just one little chance.... You place your hands against your small

belly, even as you run. They aren't there anymore, you'll never see them

again, but if you think about holding them you might just be able to keep

running.

You hear a shot fired nearby. It echoes off the wall, so loud you stop and

cover your ears. Now you're moving again, though, because you have to get

back to the main streets. If you can just find a market place, or a crowd,

you might be able to loose them.. at least the soldiers. You know He (can

hear your heart beat) will be able to sense you. And maybe, just possibly,

if you can muster enough to be tricky you can evade Him too. At least until

its too late. Then it won't matter.

(Oh, God, you just want to die...)

Here, yes! There are people here, colorful birds seen through the blinding

snow. But they're used to it, here on this world, and you're just passing

through. The air around you feels heavy, like ice. Oh, how He must hate it

here...

Shut up! Shut up! Don't think like that, you won't make it if you do.

You can slow your pace, just a little, now. The people around you gaze on

you strangely, its like a dream (it is a dream) where everyone turns to

look at you. You must look so pale- like a ghost, your lips like blood,

eyes haunted.

And you are so very haunted.

Breathing is becoming difficult, again, your lips burn with the warm

breath and then chill in the cold. You almost want to stop again..

But wait! See the Stormtroopers, who are no longer white in the presence

of the snow. See them? They're talking to the people up ahead, asking if

they've seen you. Someone shouts, points, you hear the sound of boots

against the concrete. You're running again, but you've barely noticed,

you've become so used to it. Go back the way you came, that's right, there

must be *some* place to hide. There's a flash of black, up head and..

It's HIM!

You only saw it briefly, but its burned into your eyes. He is tall, black

and nothing like (Ani, darling, what's happened to you?) your husband.

Whirling, you turn the other way. You're cornered, and He's coming (oh God,

oh God) slowly, purposefully, because He knows you have no place to go...

You rush across the street, before you think about it. It's a headlong

dive, and you're absolutely frightened out of your mind. The transports and

speeders are coming right towards you, some of them veer but others just

don't stop at all. But you must have enough momentum going, because you're

on the other side. Don't stop now! You dart down a back alley, then down

another. There are frozen people here, some dead and others only barely

alive, clustered along the walls. A few of them raise their heads as you

rush by, but you only see them vaguely. Another corner turned, and another.

There's a row of buildings here, empty ones. If they were occupied, you

wouldn't be able to bother at all because no one would let you in. No one

lives here, though, it's empty just like you. You pull on the metal doors,

briefly for each building, because you don't have much time. The clock is

ticking, as they say.

Here! This door moves more than the others when you pull. You might be

able to get in. You brace your feet against the pavement, pull with all

you've got let. Listen? Do you hear that? Sounds like footsteps, like

labored breathing... You're jerking at the handle, desperately now. The

door suddenly gives, swings outward, and then inward as you try to balance

your weight. You tumble inside the building, lay there for a moment. When

you stop running, you find it's hard to start again. But you're laying here

on the floor, and the door is still open! Moving your foot, you kick the

metal door closed. There's a loud bang, and you're almost certain you've

been heard. You tilt your face against the cold wood floor, see the

staircase out of the corner of your eye. Now you move from the floor,

slowly, like a broken doll. Once you're on your feet, its easier. Now

you're climbing the stairs, two at a time, avoiding the ones that look like

they might cave. Upstairs, now, just one big room. You wish there was a

closet, or a wardrobe-- something to hide in-- but you're out of luck. Out

of breath, out of luck, out of time. But look, someone stacked folding

tables against the wall. They're at an angle, if you crawled behind them

you might have enough room to hide. You have nothing else, so you get down

on your knees and slip behind the tables. You move on all fours, and more

than once you cut your hands on metal or broken wood. The blood is all over

the place, and not just from your hands. The smell is sickening, almost

sweet, and very overwhelming in the small place you've huddled in. For a

long, long time you just sit and wait, because what the hell else can you

do? You rock, just a little, like a small child afraid of the dark.

And the dark is coming...

You hear it again, faintly, but there is nothing else in the room to hear

but your own breath, heart and things you don't want to. Footsteps now,

moving around downstairs, but He'll get to the staircase soon enough.

You have to get out!

But where will you go?

Through the window, up onto the roof. It doesn't matter! You have to get

out!

You don't have room to turn around behind the tables, so you just crawl

forward. The heavy cloak and gown catch, tear, but you don't notice. The

sounds are still down stairs, but how long, how long until they come up?

You stand, and pain explodes in your left leg, like a sudden Nubian

fireflower. Your leg is caught between the tables, and the sounds are

coming to the steps now. You jerk on it, no matter how much it hurts,

because you're an animal caught in a trap. Oh, where are your babies now?

Don't think, don't think.

You pull harder, and the tables give, crashing to the floor. Your leg is

free, and though you hear only silence (and that breathing, don't forget

that) downstairs you know its because He's paused. He knows you're upstairs

now, He's certain. You move forward blindly, bump into something. There's

another crash, and now another sound, because whatever you've knocked down

has fallen to the floor and caught fire. The color is so vibrant, the

flames and warmth so strange that you just *stare* at it a moment. The

wooden floor is dry, the fire spreads like a wild, hungry thing. You're

surrounded now,and so very afraid. You hate the fire, the smoke is brushing

against your face and catching in your lungs. Coughing wretchedly, you know

you can't breathe, and even though you try to run you only make it a few

steps before you fall back against the tables. You're so busy coughing and

straining for air that it's only now you notice He's reached the top of the

steps. He's so black and terrible, and look how the fire reflects off His

mask, and where is your Ani underneath all of that? You just look at Him,

you can do nothing else. You're stuck on your shrinking island in the

middle of the fire, and the heat is so overwhelming you think you might be

sick. How can He manage to look horrified, when He has no face to show you?

The fire is hate, you realize. The cold was so much better because it only

wanted to solidify you, not eat you alive. He's still moving towards you,

trying to make it through the fire. Will He go even this far, just to drag

you back to His Emperor?

(And where has you faith in Him gone?)

Into the fire, with everything else!

Oh, you're terrified- the fire is nipping at your gown, eating away at

your cloak. He's coming closer too, but not quickly enough. There are no

words to say what you feel now. The walls are on fire, everything burns,

except that which was once your Ani. You can't help it now. You reach out

to Him with your arms (Luke, Leia, I'm sorry but I just can't...). In His

mask, you see your reflection, which looks pathetically frightened, like a

child. Through the pain, you realize you're being burned alive, that the

fire has finally gotten to you. Now you know what He must have felt like.

Why is he still coming for you? Isn't He afraid of the fire?

"Ani, help me..." your voice is broken, sounds so strange. He's almost to

you, He's reaching out to you too, but it's just way too late...

You can't breathe.

I can't breathe.

'You' and 'I' are the same thing, and neither of us can breathe and we're

going to die...

WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

```````````````````````````````````````````````

Amalone District, Northern Hemisphere

Imperial Center, Coruscant

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('WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!')

She woke with the taste of blood in her mouth, her hand clutching at her

throat. She heard choking noises, but it only took her a few seconds to

realize they were her own. For a long, panicked while, she wasn't sure who

'I' and 'mine' and 'my' referred to.

('You' and 'I' are the same thing, and neither of us can breathe...)

Her eyes rolled upwards, only to see the worried faces of her nurses, just

before one of them pried her mouth open and fairly shoved the breather

inside. The thoughts in her mind solidified as much as they could through

the fear, and things became more defined. Yalith Minborne, that was what

'I' meant. Her lips closed over the machine automatically and she felt it

force movement through the still air of her lungs. She fought the urge to

cough again, as her lungs fluttered helplessly. Having done the first part

of its job, the machine switched to regulating her breathing. In, out, in,

out. How she hated the rhythm! She closed her eyes, enduring, knowing that

without the machine she'd still be starving for breath, eventually drowning

with air all around her. Hovering above her, she saw the white robed nurses

clasping their hands to their hearts and looking blissfully grateful. They

looked a lot like carved angels. Didn't they put those above gravestones?

Sometimes Yalith wished they would just let her die.

(Oh, God, you just want to die...)

Her breathing had to be regular for a full five minutes before they'd take

out the machine. Yalith watched the small crystal clock on her nightstand,

willing the numbers to change. The taste of metal spiked on her tongue, and

she almost thought the blood tasted better. Briefly, she thought she caught

the taste of smoke brought into her mouth through the machine, but an

attempt to breathe through her nose only brought on another coughing fit.

Now she'd have to wait another five minutes.

Stupid lungs.

"You can take it out now," Nurse Hanip said at last. Her voice and eyes

were kind as she helped Yalith remove the machine, and the young girl felt

suddenly guilty. She shouldn't have been angry with them earlier. After

all, they were only doing the job her father paid them to do; keep Yalith

alive. None of them knew her dark wish, and none of them ever would. If

they did, they would not let her have her wish, they'd only send her to the

mental hospital. And the people *there* wouldn't let her die, either.

"Feeling better, dear?" Nurse Fallon asked sweetly, moving to help her

young charge sit up. Not for the first time, Yalith noticed that Fallon

wasn't much older than she was.

"Much better," she lied smoothly. Her eyes flickered from face to face,

trying to read their intent. "I can still go to school, can't I?"

"Now, Mistress, it's already past five hundred hours," Hanip began

reasonably, "You weren't breathing regularly for at least ten minutes. You

gave us quite a scare, and you know when you have bad mornings like this it

usually means you'll have a bad day..."

"Please?" Yalith put on her best smile, sitting up straight and looking at

each of her nurses in turn, "I'm feeling better now. I've already missed

two days this week!"

"Mistress..." Nurse Genea began.

"I would like to go to school," she said regally. The young girl turned

her eyes to the Fallon, knowing the red-head held out the best chance of

caving. "The attack wasn't spontaneous," she added, inclining her head and

looking to the side, "I had a nightmare that triggered it." Nurse Hanip

looked at Genea pointedly.

"I could have sworn I gave her the pills last night..." Genea said,

confusion coloring her tone.

"She did," Yalith lied again, keeping her face carefully expressionless,

"But they obviously don't work as well as the medic droid said they would."

Nurse Hanip's face was unreadable for several minutes before she finally

nodded, eying Yalith suspiciously.

"You can go. But," she held up a finger, "if you feel even the slightest

twinge, I want you to call immediately. Don't wait around about it, we'll

send someone to fetch you." Nodding slowly, Yalith watched each of them

leave in turn.

The numbers on the clock changed again, but still she did not move. Her

concentration focused on her breathing, but other concerns circled near by,

waiting for their turn. Mornings were her worst time of day, she felt out

of balance and unsure of her own reactions. Her eyes slipped closed for a

moment as she reached out with one hand. Without looking, her expert

fingers stole into the nightstand's drawer, returning with a small square

of cloth. Eyes still closed, she placed it fully over her mouth, and

listened. From down the hall there came the sound of Fallon making

breakfast; in the other room, Hanip was having a loud holo conversation

with someone from the Med Center. Where was Genea? Yalith's brow furrowed

in pain, but she forced herself to breathe only through her nose. Footsteps

in the hall, heavier than Fallon but lighter than Hanip. That's where Genea

was; fetching a clean school uniform. Relief apparent on her face, Yalith

coughed loudly, the sound muffled by the cloth. Pulling her hand away, she

looked down at the bloody mass laying in her palm. It was a large lump,

oozing red as it quivered. Perhaps it was breathing. More out of disgust

with herself than sickness, Yalith turned away from it, tying the cloth

into a neat little package before she hid it under her pillow. Now

breathing with as much ease as anyone, she rose from the bed and went to

dress for school.

```````````````````````````````````````````````

Super Star Destroyer: The Executioner

En Route to Coruscant

```````````````````````````````````````````````

For Darth Vader, there was never any question of reality. The nightmare

and the waking world had long since merged; he slept and knew no difference

between them. Each was fueled by anger, the groping need for revenge, the

desire to find his son. The child was, after all, the only piece of Her

left in the depraved universe, his own human legacy... He woke with little

transition and rose efficiently, as if he had sat down just moments ago.

Through the filtered vision of the mask, he sometimes entertained the idea

that either reality had no end, or else his life was one long sleep. He

wasn't sure which was worse. And-- as much as he hated to admit it-- there

were times when he hovered on that vast, sinking, edge of meditation and he

would see Her as She had last been: eyes wide and afraid, body framed by

her burning cloak, which somehow looked like a pair of twisted wings. It

was only then that he desired to blur the line, to wake and (however

briefly) feel in his disorientation that he was back in the Time Before,

perhaps even imagine that she was somewhere in the room. The 'wiss-hur' of

the breather did not allow for such indulgences.

Its sound penetrated even his sleep.

Having assured himself that the machinery running his respiratory system

was at top performance, the Sith Lord motioned for the computer to raise

the shell of the chamber. Normally he left all small uncertainties behind,

but this morning it seemed that something had followed him out, whispering

on the edge of his mind. Internally, he dodged the strange awareness that

had come in his sleep, some knowledge of... Vader cut the thought off,

abruptly, deliberately.

Beneath the mask, his face arranged itself in an expression resembled a

frown, it was rare that he thought of his life before with anything aside

from distaste. It bothered him to find anything positive about it, though

on further reflection he concluded his thoughts had recently been colored

by the knowledge that his son would be almost eighteen soon. That must be

it. Of course, he had felt the entrance of his son into the world-- the

tremor in the Force had been impossible to ignore-- just before Obi-Wan

(and whatever or whomever was aiding him) hid it away. Over the years there

had been a few isolated glimmers, exploding without warning in pain,

happiness or sorrow, but they never lasted long enough to trace. That was,

perhaps, the most frustrating aspect of the puzzle.

In the main room of his suite, he set to work on the computer, typing up a

report on the campaign on Thall. In truth, he could have delegated the task

to Captain Rebereae, but he preferred to do such things himself. (Expertly,

he dodged the idea that it was a diversion. There was no knowledge from

which to divert himself, except...) The Emperor would only be moderately

pleased with this news; more rebels had escaped then those captured, even

if Thall and its ancient matriarchal society were now securely under the

Emperor's thumb. Vader only felt half the frustration towards the Rebellion

the Emperor did, in his opinion the Rebellion would last only as long as

Mon Mothma and her lot remained alive. Even now, it seemed to tapering

out-- unless they converted a truly brilliant warrior, they might well fade

into oblivion.

(That would not do, though, Vader wanted the personal pleasure of tearing

down that which She had helped to construct. Again, he turned away from the

hovering feeling of... something.) Even if the Rebellion was to disappear,

such luck would not save them from the Emperor's wrath, or Vader's solid

determination to stamp them out completely. If the slight failure on Thall

annoyed the Emperor, then there was every chance Vader would be sent away

again twice as quickly. The less time he was forced to spend on Coruscant,

the better.

Satisfied with the report, Vader polished it off quickly and filed it

aside. He sat motionless for a moment afterwards, struggling against the

inertia of his nature, casting about for something to do, something to

occupy his mind, if only for a few minutes. If he sat still much longer, it

would come to him, this vanished and gone thing that was trying so

valiantly to rise from the ashes. He stood up prepared to stalk to the

door, head for the bridge where the presence of his underlings would surely

prevent any consideration of the Time Before. It had to be Her, he thought

with a healthy amount of bitterness. She intended to haunt him, appear on

the edges of his vision, a shadowy, airy form, and then disappear

altogether if he looked Her way. The weakling Anakin had died, but Vader

would never be free of Her. Part of him, an old part, considered this a

wonderful thing-- but the Sith Lord brushed it aside with ease. Yes, he

decided, he would go to bridge; there was no reason to approach this day

differently just because it was... Vader sat down, abruptly and heavily.

With a sinking feeling in the heart he wasn't supposed to have, he

realized it was his anniversary.

```````````````````````````````````````````````

Amalone District, Northern Hemisphere

Imperial Center, Coruscant

```````````````````````````````````````````````

Freshly dressed in the uniform of the Coruscant Select Academy for Ladies,

and freed at last from the constant worrying of her Nurses, Yalith was in a

considerably better mood than the one she woke up in. She even felt so

daring as to skip down the hallway outside her apartment-- a feat which

was, during her bad season, impossible to accomplish without a fit of

coughing. Smiling widely at the stranger in the lift, she toyed with the

ends of her long braids, feeling a bout of restlessness settle in with her

good mood. It seemed like a crime that she'd be stuck in her cramped desk

all day, especially since she felt more alive than she had in months. The

morning's confusion, as well as the dream ( no, no, not a dream, a memory )

had passed over her like a cloud on its way to someone else. Yalith

supposed that the Importance of the day had something to do with her good

mood. She didn't bother to analyze *why* the day felt important, she knew

from long practice that it would be futile. It was the same with the

strangers she met (the ones who seemed so familiar), and the places she

came to one her first visit (but knew her way around with startling

accuracy). On an intellectual level these things escaped her, but deep

down, they were there. So, she simply accepted the fact that today was

significant and moved on. She felt, insanely, that she ought to celebrate

somehow.

"Hisae!" she called out when the lift opened at the bottom floor. Hisae,

Yalith's best friend, was easy to spot even across the large lobby.

"You're late," the other girl remarked as Yalith came closer. Hisae

crossed her arms in good-natured annoyance, glancing significantly at

Yalith's sparkling eyes and smile. "Here I am thinking the Mother Patrol

isn't going to let you come to school, and then you show up all bright eyed

and bushy tailed."

"Well," Yalith pointed out, wagging her finger, "I almost didn't get past

them."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Yalith rolled her eyes heavenward in annoyance. By some unspoken

agreement, both girls headed towards the door, busy buttoning up their long

wool coats. She risked a glance at her watch, "We're going to miss our

train if we don't hurry. I'll explain on the way."

"If we're late, can we can blame it on one of your attacks? I have three

tardies already, I can't afford anymore," Hisae said, tucking in her scarf,

then pausing to hold open the door.

Outside, Coruscant's chilly morning air rushed over them, more intense

then it would have been in the lower levels of the city. Despite the

enormous control the planet's occupants exerted over the weather, there was

a marked drop in temperature towards the end of the year.

"Three tardies?" Yalith asked once they were safely on their way to

station. The wind whistled through the city's tall caverns, forcing her to

raise her voice.

"Uh-huh. Don't you remember that-- Oh, that's right, you missed a lot this

week," Hisae patted Yalith on the back, an understanding smile in her

green eyes. The other girl merely shook her head, ashamed with her

weakness. "Anyway, my brother came home for a visit two days ago, and he's

been keeping me up with all night with stories," she yawned, as if to

emphasize the point, "They're really great, though. I wish I could be a

Stormtrooper," Hisae's voice took on a sad note, "This 'males-only' thing

is plain mynok-poodoo." Yalith flinched, but said nothing. She and Hisae

had gone round and round about their pseudo-political opinions, and they

both tried to to pick their battles. This was one Yalith avoided, mostly

because the chances of Hisae actually *becoming* a Stormtrooper were about

the same as her chances of sprouting wings to fly. It wasn't worth

jeopardizing their friendship over. Instead she reached up to tug on

Hisae's close-chopped bob of ebony hair.

"Well," she winked, "This hair-cut may make you look boyish, but I think

you have a few other physical aspects that might just give you away."

"You're cruel!" Hisae shrieked, giving her friend a playful shove. Yalith

returned the favor, and a scuffle ensued. Laughing, the smaller girl backed

up against the railing of high-street, hands raised in surrender.

"I give, I give!" Yalith cried, gasping for breath.

"You should give!" her friend responded, "I'd be the best damn

Stormtrooper in the Imperial Academy has ever seen!" She struck a fist

against her palm, green eyes determined.

Still trying to regain her breathing pattern, Yalith merely nodded her

support. Abruptly, Hisae's triumphant smile faded. "Hey," she said, placing

a hand on Yalith's shoulder, "Are you alright?"

"Uh-huh," the other girl managed, pushing the murmur through her blood-red

lips. The rest of her face was as colorless as a porcelain mask. Hisae

grabbed for Yalith's purse, intent on finding the portable machine inside,

but Yalith's long fingers held fast.

"Don't you want your breather?" Hisae's eyes were wide in worry, and only

worry. Even in her distress, Yalith was thankful she found no pity there

in.

"No," she tipped her head back, trying to draw air past the blockage in

her lungs. A taste, faint as a ghost, teased her nostrils; stale and sharp,

like honey. Smoke. Panic surged, and the sound of hear heart beat was

heavy in her ears. 'There is no fire' Yalith told herself, pushing up the

sleeves of her heavy coat and exposing her arms to the cold. 'Feel that?'

she asked herself, 'No fire.'

('No fire..' something whispered distantly, like a sad low croon. 'Yes,

today is a happy and sad day'.)

Yalith shuddered-- she felt the sadness hovering, and she wanted it to

leave. Better she think of today as isolated from

('He's so black and terrible, and look how the fire reflects off His mask,

and where is your Ani underneath all of that?')

her nightmares. She closed her eyes, tried to dispel all knowledge save

that she was safe from the fire. Slowly, the metallic little butterfly

caged within her lungs feel silent and still; Yalith breathed deeply,

reached into her pocket for the scrap of cloth and coughed into it once.

".. please. You're scaring me, Yali!" Hisae was saying when Yalith's

senses returned completely.

"Hmm?" she asked, blinking her wide gray eyes.

"Don't you 'hmm?' me!" the ebony haired girl's hands where shaking, "A

minute ago it was like you were dead, and you wouldn't even use the

breather!"

"I don't want to be dependent on a machine," Yalith spat, "Besides, I used

it once already this morning." She forced her lips into a reassuring smile

as she reached out to place a hand on Hisae's shoulder. "I'm fine now."

With her free hand, she expertly wadded up the now-bloody cloth and tossed

it into the nearest waste bin.

Hisae's smile was weak, but real, "I must be the self-fulfilling prophet.

I said we'd use one of your attacks as an excuse, and now you're had one!"

"School..." Yalith's eyes were wide as she glanced down at her watch,

"Holy Force, our train leaves in three minutes!"

"Relax," Hisae waved a hand about, "We're late, we'll only miss Modern

History."

"Hisae...!" the other girl exclaimed, "We have a test in there today!"

"No, that's next..." Hisae blinked rapidly. "Oh, Maker, I didn't study!"

Yalith rolled her eyes, "Come on, I'll quiz you on the train. We need to

hurry!" With that, the two girls proceeded to partake in a ritual that

would persist amongst students in spite of the Empire or the Rebellion: the

mad dash to school.

--------------------

Hisae set her lunch tray down roughly, watching the delicate glass plates

and silverware jump and land haphazardly.

"No only did I royally screw up my Modern History test," she said,

slumping into her chair, "but I *know* I failed that little Etiquette quiz

they decided to spring on us." Glancing up at Yalith, she realized the

other girl hadn't moved since her arrival. Yalith had her chin rested on

her hand, head bent towards the large window and eyes a million miles away.

Her relaxed face seemed to belong to a stranger. "Yalith...?" the dark

haired girl ventured.

"Yes?" Yalith blinked her opal eyes rapidly. To Hisae, it seemed that

someone pealed back a veil, revealing the girl she knew.

"Coruscant to TIE cadet Yalith," Hisae joked, waving a hand in the other

girl's face, "Did you hear a word I said?"

"I did," the brown-haired girl blushed, "but it sounded different. Kind of

far away." She speared a slice Corellian lamp-light fruit with her fork and

chewed thoughtfully. "Anyway, I wouldn't worry about failing Etiquette-- it

just means that no ne of the pompous bastards in the Emperor's court will

marry you. Consider it a compliment." She winked, eyes sparkling.

"True," the other girl shrugged, "Say, speaking of the Emperor, aren't we

up to be presented to Court soon?"

Yalith made a face, "Yeah, in two months. I'm hoping to plead sick-- you

know I'm the last person who wants to go bow and scrape to the Emperor."

"Yali!" Hisae looked appropriately horrified, but Yalith wasn't sure if it

was a personal expression, or one made do to the presence of their

teachers. The ebony haired girl jerked her thumb over her shoulder, drawing

her friend's attention to the Instructor near-by. Instructor Al'Tinom, the

stiff-backed woman who taught Literature, eyed both girl's suspiciously.

Yalith flashed a blindly innocent smile in the teacher's direction, knowing

full well how unpopular her sentiments were amongst the faculty. Somehow,

Yalith couldn't find it in herself to care, always dancing on the fine line

between sarcastic comments and treason.

"Oh, yes, that was smooth," Hisae rolled her eyes, "One of these days,

they're going to up and execute you."

"I'll be dead before I'm twenty anyway," Yalith shrugged.

Silence stretched before them, not uncomfortable, but strange. Hisae

wasn't sure which she found more disturbing-- the idea that her friend

truly wouldn't be alive long enough to grow up, or the fact that it really

didn't bother Yalith. She wondered how long Yalith had known, then thought

she must have been told long ago. It had to take many years to cultivate

that type neutrality to ones own end. With a sad look in her eyes, Hisae

pushed her pudding around in the bowl, making random patterns of swirls and

zig-zags that led no where.

"Well," she said at last, "at least the testing portion of today is over."

"Hmm? Oh, no, we still have Math, remember?" Yalith's voice was automatic;

her chin back in her hand and her face once more remote. Hisae thrust her

tray aside so she could bang her head on the table in frustration with

muffled 'why me!?', and it was only after she had done this that she

realized Yalith was paying only the barest attention.

"There's something strange about you today," Hisae remarked with

certainty.

"What..." Yalith shook her head, pressing two fingertips against her

temples as she furrowed her brows. "I'm sorry," she apologized, "I only

heard part of what you said."

"I said you're acting strangely today-- even for you," the other girl

moved her arms, needing a way to express her frustration. "It's like you're

not even here! This isn't like you." For a moment there was silence, but it

reverberated for so long that Hisae was almost certain that Yalith had been

drawn away again by... whatever was outside the window. There was more than

that, she knew, but somehow her mind shied away from it.

"I *feel* strange," Yalith said quietly, running a finger along the edge

of her glass. "I don't know... I feel off balance. Different, like I'm

wearing the wrong body."

Hisae blinked at the odd description, "... the wrong body?"

"And I'm in the wrong place, the wrong time," the brown-haired girl's

words came more quickly, staccato beats, like the fire from a blaster.

"I've ridden the emotional roller coaster at least ten times already today.

One minute I'm happy, today being what it is, and the next the same thing I

was happy about makes me sad. Not usual sad either."

"Sad how, then?"

"Like," the words brushed against Yalith's tongue as she tried to

translate emotion to imagery. "Like being so far under water that you can't

even see a bit of sunlight." Hisae nodded, pressing her thin lips together.

Her mind caught on something and she frowned.

"You said something about today," she pointed out. Her emerald eyes

searched Yalith's face, looking for a familiar reaction, "What's so special

about today?"

"Oh, that," color, soft and pink, rose to Yalith's cheeks as she lowered

her eyes to contemplate her drink. A smile, fleeting smile formed on her

lips. "Today is just special, that's all." Hisae sat back in surprise,

she'd never before seen Yalith this way, wistful, almost... she searched

her mind for the word, but couldn't find the right one. The smile lingered

on the other girl's face for a moment longer, before Yalith shook her head

violently. She raised her opal eyes to Hisae, imploring. "See! It doesn't

make any sense! It's like I'm feeling the wrong things, too." Unsure of

what to say, Hisae reached across the table to touch her friend's hand,

worry marring her wide features.

"Do you want to call your nurses?" she suggested, "Maybe if you go

home..."

"If I go home they will be insufferable," the bitterness was plain in

Yalith's tone, "Besides, I don't think this can be stopped with anything

short of a concussion. I'll just have to stick it out here."

The other girl's sigh was more like a hiss, "If you're sure..."

"Sure about what?" The new voice injected so roughly that both girl's

started, staring like guilty children towards the girl who'd approached

their table. Yalith took one look and quickly turned back to the window.

"Morja," Hisae managed, trying to make her tone apologetic. Yalith's

reaction was understandable; Morja was more Hisae's friend. "Hello. Is

there something I can do for you?"

"Oh, I was just wondering if I could sit with you," Morja's voice, like

the rest of her, was altogether colorless, "I'm taking lunch this period

instead of next because of testing." Moving her chair, Hisae eyed her

classmate cautiously-- she didn't like interacting with her when Yalith was

around. She managed a small 'sure', and hoped that Morja wouldn't try to

tease Yalith as she usually did. Morja nodded curtly, much like the

Imperial Commander her father was, and seated herself carefully. All the

while, her narrow eyes were on Yalith, who was either transfixed with that

'something' in the sky, or doing a very good job of ignoring the intruder's

presence.

"So, what were you ladies talking about?" Morja prompted. There was

something about her speech that made her seem older, or else more

condescending. To Hisae's eternal surprise, Yalith was the one who

answered.

"The math test next bell," Yalith lied loosely, "I studied all last night

and I still don't feel prepared."

"Oh, me too," Morja's tone was as distracted as Yalith's, and Hisae could

see her craning her neck to see just what was so fascinating outside. "It

will be tough, that's for sure."

"Hmmm..." was the brown-haired girl's reply.

"May I ask what you're looking at?" Morja was all innocence, but Hisae

thought she could detect another motive somewhere between the words.

"There's something in the sky."

"Yalith," Hisae said, "There's always something in the sky. We have some

five million tons of hardware orbiting the planet."

"No, look," Yalith pressed a long, delicate finger against the glass,

indicating a gray shape outlined in the morning sky. Hisae gwaffed; at

first the small triangle looked to be the usual planet side view of a Star

Destroyer but, upon closer inspection, it was clearly something else.

Hisae managed to express her feelings elegantly: "What the hell is that?"

"That?" asked Morja. She was leaning over Yalith's shoulder, shielding her

eyes from the sun. She looked a moment longer, then sat back down with a

laugh. "Oh, that. I guess you haven't heard about it yet."

"What is it?" Yalith turned towards Morja, staring at the other girl as if

she had all the answers.

"It's called a Super Star Destroyer," clearly, Morja was bragging on

behalf of the entire Imperial Navy, "Bigger than three Star Destroyers and

ten times as powerful. It's a like a whole city in space," her hands moved

quickly, to illustrate the point, "The Emperor is giving them to his most

loyal officers, as a token of his appreciation."

"How kind of him," Yalith rolled her eyes.

"That's the first one off the line," Morja went on, oblivious to the other

girl's barb, "It's called the 'Executioner'."

Hisae made a low whistle of a approval. "The 'Executioner'," she said,

getting a taste for it.

"Oh, it gets better," Morja's voice vibrated with excitement and pride,

"They tested her out in a space battle near Thall. You know, that planet

that's been giving the Emperor so much trouble? Well, the 'Executioner'

plowed the field! They say she's amazing!"

"How do you know this?" asked Yalith.

"Oh," Morja tossed her tight curls, "My dad was promoted and reassigned.

He was aboard the 'Executioner' for the Thall Campaign."

"That must be exciting," Hisae said.

"Oh, it is," Morja climbed to her feet, glancing at the clock, "I want to

go see Resu before the bell rings. Nice talking to you!" She took a few

dainty steps, then looked over her shoulder. "Oh, Hisae, I meant to tell

you that Resu and I are going to the El'Hafta Square at the end of the

week. You can come with us, if you like." Glancing at Yalith, Morja added

guiltily, "You can come too, Yalith. If you want to." Without another word,

she stalked off towards the other side of the dinning hall.

"Thanks for the offer," Hisae called after her. Turning back to Yalith,

Hisae asked, "I wonder what she really wanted."

Yalith shrugged her slim shoulders, "Instructor Al'Tinom probably sent her

over to make sure I wasn't asking you to join the Rebellion."

"As far as I know," the other girl ventured, "*you're* not a member of the

Rebellion."

"Not yet, anyway," Yalith waged her finger, hurriedly munching on the

remains of her meal.

"Yali!" Hisae shook her head, alternating between annoyance and amusement.

In the back of her mind, she couldn't help but notice that despite the fact

Yalith had an explanation for the Super Star Destroyer, the other girl

still seemed to be forcibly keeping herself from staring at it.

"Sorry," Yalith muttered, in a way that said she really wasn't. For some

time, the only sounds between them were those of silverware against glass,

and the soft chunk of fruit broken in half. All the while Hisae watched her

friend covertly, feeling the need to ask a question but lacking the words

to do so. She found them quite suddenly.

"Why were you looking at the... the Super Star Destroyer, Yalith? What

made you see it in the first place?" Something that was like a shadow, but

not, seemed to pass over Yalith's face. Hisae thought she heard the other

girl say 'someone I...' but the rest of it was lost in the din as the bell

rang for class.

```````````````````````````````````````````````

Super Star Destroyer: The Executioner

Orbiting Coruscant

```````````````````````````````````````````````

Vader felt watched, the corners of his world turning upward in someone

else's vision. It was a sensation that raced along his back (though,

really, there were only wires there now), like the memory of Her as she

watched covertly from the window, then let the curtain fall aside when he

sensed Her gaze. The ghost of an image, held only because the eye had not

yet sensed it was gone.

'I'm projecting,' he told himself roughly. He paced the bridge like a

caged panther, holding the energy to himself should he really need to

escape. Of course, flight was never an option, but it was something like

that. An animal instinct. The sound of activity buzzed around him and Vader

found some small amount of satisfaction in the level of fear his own slight

(it *had* to be slight) discomfort roused in those under his command. Fear

could be drawn from, like dipping a ladle into a well, swiftly and quietly.

He wondered, sometimes, if his men ever noticed the power he drew from

them. Were there symptoms? Fatigue, dizziness, detachment perhaps? Vader

had no way of knowing what the side effects his draining induced. He cared

little either way; the Dark Side demanded fear or anger, but it was always

best to have both. They could feed off each other in an uninterrupted

cycle, a shield against the pathetic Light and memories of Her.

He needed to run, such was the pressure building up inside him. It was an

old feeling; faded anticipation, affection forced into exile, mixed with

excitement and somehow polished new. There was so much of it, the old-new

energy, that-- as absurd as the idea of running was-- Vader was tempted to

sprint from the bridge. Instead, his brain sent impulses that forced the

wires in his 'hands' to clench. It wasn't quite the same as balling one's

fist, but it would have to do. The fists were gone now.

"Lord Vader," he turned swiftly to see the bland Lieutenant before him,

looking white faced with fear.

"Yes?" his voice was firm, expectant.

"M-my Lord," the Lieutenant looked as if he was resisting the urge to

close his eyes and steel himself, "We have a message from the Emperor. He

requests your presence planet side for considerable length, the message

says." Inwardly, Vader frowned in distaste. He had been hoping for another

rebellion to quell, rabble-raisers to silence, something that demanded his

immediate attention.

"Very well," his voice betrayed nothing, for there was nothing to betray,

"Prepare my shuttle."

"Yes, my Lord." A quick bow, and the soldier was gone. Vader turned toward

the view port, hands held behind his back and hidden by the cloak. Without

meaning too, his stretched his senses, seeking the new and bleeding

awareness in the Force. It had been there before, he realized, but it had

been eclipsed by something else. With so much of the physical world closed

to him, Vader had a practiced ease with turning his focus to the

Force-filled level. He saw it much like a mechanical diagram, superimposed

over what the eye took in. The presence was maddening; it's prior existence

a mystery. How had he missed it before? Without any knowledge of its actual

location, he pushed at it, and it hummed with emotion like a glass chime.

["I'd come back for you, if you took too long."]

Her voice, hushed but close in the warm darkness.

NO!

A low growl of frustration burst past the breather, amplified by the mask,

and it made the officers jump. Vader felt their eyes on him but paid them

no heed. Instead, he bent his head ever so slightly, still listening to the

ripple of that little glass chime in the Force.

'She's dead,' he told himself. He knew she was dead; he'd touched Her cold

body and laid it in the ground. The knowledge of Her final resting place

was his alone, even if he'd never gone back. It wasn't enough, though, Her

death was hard to comprehend no matter how long it had been. So, Vader made

himself do it all over again; he made himself climb the broken stairs to

the almost-empty room where she'd been hiding. The pattern of his breathing

was overwhelming even in his own ears, new as it was, and it seemed to fill

the room and then some. Forcing the recollection, he saw her small form

draped in wine-red, saw her frantic attempts to get away.

'Now the fire,' he told himself, and remembered that too. He saw her

stumble, curl in on herself as the flames spilled onward and the fire gave

her wings. Then her eyes, he couldn't forget to remember her eyes and how

frightened/scared/hopeless/hurt they looked, and how he was the last thing

she'd seen.

He needed to do this, from time to time, to make sure he knew the

difference between Anakin-who-was-dead and the man he had become. The

memory, though exhausting, served as punctuation where Anakin and Vader

blurred.

This was how he kept himself sane.

Firmly where he felt he should be, Vader strode from the bridge and

towards the docking bay. Even Coruscant, so Force-filled and alive, seemed

bearable now that the world was back on the proper axis. The Sith Lord

thrust away his awareness of the other presence, and its new hidden weave

through the Force. He would not be weak, he would not allow himself to

entertain the illusion of Her existence. Today was like any other day.

[ "I'd come back for you, if you took too long." ]

```````````````````````````````````````````````

Kyoshima District, Northern Hemisphere

Imperial Center, Coruscant

```````````````````````````````````````````````

You're so cold. You know He's coming, there isn't much time left, so you

just keep running. Down one of the alley-ways you see rows of people,

frozen, uncaring, with their faces like gray masks. You look at them,

imploring, your gaze asks 'will you help me?' but few of them look at you,

and the ones that do seem dead. Their eyes are hallow, hallow like his

mask, like the Death's Head that is chasing you. Oh...

Yalith felt herself drawn back along with her body, swaying suddenly as

the train pulled into the station. The gray masks sharpened and came into

focus, becoming the faces of those strangers ridding in the tunnel car. For

a moment she continued to stare at the crowd, trying to memorize the detail

in their expressions, to draw forth some humanity.

"Yali," impatient tugging on the sleeve of her coat, "come on, this is our

stop." She glanced at the display, frowning, and tried to loosen Hisae's

grip on her wrist.

"No, this is Kyoshima... aren't we going to Omoshiroi Shokudo?" Yalith

stumbled towards the door regardless, barely managing to grab her school

bag as she trailed helplessly after Hisae.

"Yeah, but Resu says Morja knows another way to get there that's much more

interesting," the other girl explained, pushing her hand through her ebony

locks and scanning the busy terminal for their friends. "Could it have

killed them to wait even a second?" she mumbled.

"Probably," Yalith sighed through her teeth. Suddenly, she gestured

towards the flight of stairs leading out into the city, "No wait, there

they are."

She held on to her frustration as they made their way through the crowd--

at least she knew it belonged to her alone. Hisae called out to the other

girls, making Yalith flinch. The terminal was like a seashell, taking

voices and laughs and the click-clack of high-heels and mixing them up into

one big echo. Strange, how so many different people-- humans, aliens, and

droids-- could make a rhythm like that. It was like the sound of the ocean

far off, saying that it was bringing in something on the next wave. Of it's

own will, Yalith's hand delved past her coat and into her skirt pocket,

grasping for the small medical communicator. She felt the smooth black

button under her finger, knew that pressure was all she had to apply and

her nurses would send someone to fetch her. The next wave could be avoided,

she didn't had to be there when it broke on the shore. In the next moment,

her thoughts rang with disbelief, chiming with the excitement that had

somehow crept into her veins. Color rose to her cheeks; this might be it,

the pinnacle of her strange memory, where the nightmare broke into the

surface of reality. With the renewed focus, she quickened her pace until

she was the one pulling Hisae along.

"Is there some hurry I don't know about?" Hisae asked when they'd mounted

the steps. Morja stood at the top, arms crossed impatiently over her chest.

Resu leaned against the wall beside her, a girl with copper skin and hair

just a shade darker.

"No, no hurry," Morja smiled blandly.

"Anyway," Resu added in her perpetual soft-and-breathy whisper, "We

thought you," she aimed her blue gaze towards Yalith in particular, "were

going home."

"No," Yalith pursed her lips, "if I had been going home I would have..."

she took one look at the emotion flickering on Resu's face. "Oh, never

mind."

"Morja," Hisae's voice sounded quickly, rushing in to fill the silence,

"aren't you going to show us the short cut?"

"Oh, of course," Morja flipped her hair, turned on her heal and walked

towards the door with a confident swish of her skirt, "Come along, ladies."

Hisae looped her arm through Yalith's and turned towards her.

"Sorry about that," she whispered as they fell into step behind Morja and

Resu.

Yalith shook her head, eying Resu with subtle distaste, "It's not your

fault." Hisae smiled gratefully.

"Come on," she said, "I'll play you at one of the TIE simulators once we

get to Omoshiroi. My treat."

Once outside, Morja lead them confidently through the myriad levels and

streets of Coruscant's upper-class shopping district, crossing streets and

turning down back pathways seemingly at random. Yalith kept her gaze on the

brightly lit shop windows, watching as their shimmering doubles flickered

across the endless displays of dresses and jewelry. The wind picked up,

whistling through the tall buildings and pushing the clouds over to cover

the already pale sun. The shadows thrown on the side walk had begun to fade

by the time Morja stopped and announced, "Here's the main event!"

"Oh..." the word was small as it escaped from Yalith's mouth. Before her

stretched one of the longest walkways she'd ever seen, suspended high above

the lower levels as if daring itself to fall. It was obviously the fancy of

an inspired architect, fashioned out of clear blue stones that allowed one

to see city bellow as they walked across.

"Damn," Hisae smiled, pulling at her scarf. The wind was even stronger on

the bridge, roaring heedlessly past the barrier of wire that lined the

walk-way.

"I told you it was worth the detour," Morja arched a triumphant eyebrow.

"Sure you want to come with us, Yali?" Resu asked with thick sweetness,

"The height won't upset your breathing, will it?"

"No," Yalith ground out. Morja coughed delicately and gestured toward the

row of stores at the far end of the walk way.

"Shall we, then?" she asked. Giggling, the four girls began to move,

clinging to one another as they gazed down to where the city disappeared

into the dark levels of the underworld.

"Sweet Maker," Hisae leaned towards the wire fencing, "we must be near the

political district. Look at all the landing platforms!"

Resu squealed, "Oh! See any one we know?"

"That might be Lady Haytho," Morja pointed to a far deck, "but it's kind

of hard to tell from here." They stood still for a while craning their

heads to see if that really was so-and-so, and if was even possible that

you-know-who would come to Coruscant in a trashy little ship like *that*.

Yalith stood and watched them, still but not stiff, shivering with the cold

and building anticipation. Presently, the game grew boring and the group

continued on. It seemed as if it was the city that moved beneath their

feet, and not the other way around.

And then the wave broke, smoothing itself over Yalith and drawing her back

out to sea. Later, she would not be able to recall how she detached her

hand from Hisae's with uncanny ease, or that she turned from the others and

forgot that they ever were. She moved slowly to the other side of the

bridge, one foot in front of the other, hands loose at her sides. The

school bag slipped from her fingers and fell to the ground with the muted

thunk, before it too passed out of her realm. The wind moved through her

long brown locks, played with the end of her skirt, brushed against her

scarf like a mother trying to draw an infant from a nightmare. Yalith paid

it no heed as she threaded her long fingers in the wire fence, bracing

herself. Tilting her head, she ran her eyes over the world below, searching

for something nameless. There was a landing pad close by, lined with

Stormtroopers and other officers but empty at the middle. It was waiting

for a ship.

"An..." said Yalith, fascinated. Her tongue touched briefly against her

chapped lips, tasting the word she'd almost said. A loud hiss reached her

ears, the sound of a shuttle pulling in its wings, landing on the platform.

The Stormtroopers stayed where they were, like decorative statues. The was

another long, suspended moment as hatch opened and the ramp extended,

sending a barely noticeable quiver of fear through the company of soldiers.

From her vantage point, Yalith drew in a swift breath. She stood at the

threshold; she suddenly knew she was an innocent, and that the knowledge

would destroy the innocence in turn.

"Ana..." shadows were spilling out of the shuttle, congealing, taking

physical form. A figure emerged, dark and tall and horrible,

[ He's so black and terrible, and look how the fire reflects off His mask,

and where is your Ani underneath all of that? ]

using the face of death to hide its own. She knew that face intimately,

knew it as the incarnation of antithesis; a source of pain and comfort,

loved and hated, needed and rejected so utterly. For a moment, Yalith was

within her nightmare, seeing the world through the haze of her 'other

self'. The feeling spiraled back, brushing past the monster and into a time

when he didn't exist. She saw through the cloak of shadows and the death's

head mask, to the core. There was someone else (some one important, someone

loved) there, inside the Shadow Man, just as there was someone else inside

of Yalith. She drew her breath past hot tears; perhaps it wasn't quite like

that. She stared openly, eyes wide and breath shallow.

Suddenly, He looked up, so quickly that it was hard to register.

"Anakin..." the word was unfamiliar and broken. Her fingers tightened

their grip painfully as she sagged against the fencing.

The world caught fire.

--------------

The presence was close, Vader was sure of it the moment he stepped off the

shuttle. Annoyance and anger made it easy to channel through the Dark Side,

though the Sith Lord was not sure whether he was trying to locate the

presence of ignore it. This close, it seemed so like it that it was absurd

to think her dead, but...

"Lord Vader," Grand Moff Tarkin, the shriveled man Vader found personally

revolting, made a low sweeping bow as he detached himself from the row of

other officers. "It is a pleasure, as always."

"Is there some need for your presence here, Tarkin?" it came out slowly as

Vader reigned in his temper. He sensed some of what the Emperor was

planning in Tarkin's surface thoughts.

"But of course," Tarkin's smile was a mere lifting of muscles. "The

Emperor will speak with us all," he gestured to the other Admirals and

Grand Moffs, "in regards to his new project." There was nothing that could

be said to that, so Vader nodded. It was not a good sign that the Emperor

had sent Tarkin to fetch him, so to speak. The Master must suspect about

the son of Skywalker, must have sensed that Vader knew more than he let on.

Impossible, it seemed, especially since Vader knew only little more than

the Emperor, but the secret was there. He tried to remember when he could

have let down his guard, only to be distracted by the presence. It let

loose with another ripple of emotion, very strange and concave, that rang

throughout the Force. Vader found it intoxicating; at close range it was

impossible to miss, and for a moment he simply concentrated on the feeling

of Padme's aura as it brushed against his own. Amazing, how the mind could

convince itself that a memory was valid; he'd thought he could recall what

it felt like, the blinding touch, but oh how his mind had deceived him! The

contact was so much more prolonged than the last, which had soured as her

soul slipped away and....

'Padme` is dead.'

Vader looked up sharply. There had been an end to Padme`, an erasure of

her presence, so how was that he could touch her now? Only She could

generate that aura, her Force signature was unique above all. Insanely, he

thought he caught her scent. Padme's perfume, the kind in the red and gold

bottle, the kind she dipped her fingers into and pressed against her neck,

her wrists and...

The Sith Lord found his gaze drawn to one of the walkways above and, just

for a moment, his lungs rebelled against the rhythm of the breather.

For there, suspended above him and chilled by the wind, stood the wife of

Anakin Skywalker.

=====================================================

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

*puppy eyes* All I want for Christmas is some feedback....


	3. In the Mirror

Date Begun: November 22nd, 2001

Date Finished: June 6th, 2002 

-------------------------------------------

Faces in the Passageway 2/?

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

http://www.demando.net/

-------------------------------------------

It was the change in the air that made Hisae stop and turn around. Bewildered, she lifted her hand, uncurling the fingers that had, moments ago, been interlocked with those of her best friend. For a few, insane moments, it seemed as if Yalith had never been; the girl that shared lunch with Hisae, lived on the floor bellow her apartment, that had been her best friend since before she could remember-- well, she was gone. She never had been. Drawing in a frightened breath, Hisae raised her fingers to her temples, trying to anchor herself in the moment. 

"Yali!?" she called, cupping her hands to make the sound bigger. "Yalith!" The wind only made a hollow noise, like the sound of dying, as it raced through the spires of the city. Now frantic, Hisae turned to see Morja and Resu walking far ahead, seemingly in another world altogether. "Guys!" she tried to run, a few off-beat steps on the pavement, but she moved no further when the other girls turned their dispassionate eyes to her. 

"Something wrong, Hisae?" Resu's smile was slight, somehow faintly amused. An image sprung to life in Hisae's mind: a seamstress, selecting a thread the color of Yalith, ripping, digging in with the needle, tearing it mercilessly away. 

"Yalith is gone!" Hisae managed past the worry in her throat. She searched Resu's eyes, then Morja's, for some sign of concern or recognition.

"Oh," Morja shrugged, "Strange. Well, you know how weird she is. She probably just wandered off." 

"She might have had an attack someplace," Resu's voice was sugar laced with acid, and she stared at Hisae across the space between them. Hisae spun away quickly, feeling her anger as though it was a blaster in her hand. Down the path which she'd come, people dotted the bridge like miniatures until they disappeared in the maze of buildings. It was more crowded than she remembered.

Now she was running, ignoring the world caught under glass beneath her feet. Her eyes cast themselves amongst the strangers-- other school girls, minor diplomats, tourists-- as if she was looking for someone she hadn't seen in years. There was a young woman standing by the fencing, clinging to the wire as though she might weave herself through it. Hisae stopped, staring at the unfamiliar girl, who stood so regally in her private, bizarre grief. The wind moved through her long brown locks, and for a moment Hisae saw something familiar resurface in the girl's profile. Choaked with relief and a growing sense of helplessness, Hisae rushed forward.

"Yalith!"

* * * * * * * * * 

You used to think you didn't have a heart anymore, in your nightmares you'd find your breast carved open, utterly empty. You could see right through yourself, in these dreams, you were split from breast bone to navel with all that you'd lost; but now you know, you know you have a heart because the fire is burning through it. 

"Ani, help me!" your voice is an open thing, inhuman, for the fire is kissing along your throat. It holds to your hand too, burning, peeling away flesh like the petals of a flower. How white your bones are, like the little ivory tokens you played with as a child, how polished they seem! He's coming for you, He's almost to your side, and the sound of his breathing is the only thing you can hear over the pain. 

"Ani..." it doesn't even sound like his name, this mutilated noise you make. He's taken you by the shoulders now, and you're crumbling in his grasp. Why aren't you dead now, why? The pain reshapes the world, you're seeing the Ani you lost, somewhere inside that mask. He's picked you up, cradling you like a doll, carrying you out of the flames. Yes, you think, this must be outside the flames, because your body feels the touch of cold like a long forgotten dream. You're laying on the pavement now, watching the smoke rise like the forms of angels from your own body. How strange it is to smolder, to be aware that you have no feet, no hands. There is a story like that somewhere, a maiden with no hands, who craned her neck to taste an apple. Dimly, you remember the feel of your babies in the arms you no longer have; how they nestled to your breasts while you spoke and sang to them. You tried to give them freedom, you pray that their cage is wider and weaker than yours.

You have only ashes to give them now.

You feel Him touch your cheek, hear him say a word that used to make sense to you, and though your eyes are open you can't see anything anymore....

"YALITH!" 

Her hands were so cold, but they were though, even though she couldn't move them. There was a touch of warm, real skin against her own, wide hands gripping her wrists, slowly bringing her away from the fence. Yalith stared at the new face blankly; seeing short ebony hair, green eyes and square jaw as separate things. In an instant, they snapped together, and a fresh torrent of tears (had she been crying?) cascaded down her cheeks. 

"Hisae," she said brokenly.

"What... Yalith, what happened?" Hisae's hands fell away from Yalith's wrists, hovering uselessly in the air. Her eyes seemed to search her friend's face, looking for the person she knew.

Taking a deep breath, Yalith tasted her own tears and blood, "I don't-- Oh, Force, Hisae. I don't know!" She felt herself fall forward, her own hands coming to her mouth for anther coughing fit, so it was a relief when Hisae caught her in a supportive hug. Utterly exhausted, Yalith turned her face into Hisae's shoulder and wept bitterly. 

"You... you looked so strange! I almost didn't know it was you... What happened?" Hisae asked again, like a mantra. Yalith searched her own mind frantically, but the time when she had been calmly walking towards Omoshiroi Shokudo seemed like a fragment of someone else's life. Briefly, the face of Death floated before her eyes, surrounded by flames and housing someone that she had once loved dearly. It was like the last strains of music over the night-time dunes, and she lost it almost immediately. 

"I saw something," Yalith murmured as she pulled away. An odd feeling of doubleness encased her; though the sadness and anger still raged against one another, she felt somehow removed from them. Removed from herself. She looked down at her hands, feeling their cold as she cradled them against each other, "I know it's silly, but I got scared and started coughing." Now she raised her eyes to meet Hisae's, "I don't even remember what it was I saw!" She tried to laugh, too, but the it came out twisted and she started crying all over again. Hisae smiled worriedly, as though she sensed that Yalith was lying to herself, and pressed her hand against the other girl's forehead.

"You're burning up," she said, shrugging out of her long wool coat. She held it out, draping it on Yalith's shoulders. 

"You'll catch cold too," the other girl pointed out, absently wiping her face with her scarf. 

Hisae's lips burst into a forced, cocky grin, "Hey, Stormtroopers have to have endurance!" The words were rout, almost automatic, thrust out to give the situation familiarity. She held out her bare arms, as if to prove her point. Yalith let out a breath and new tears as she shook her head miserably.

"I'm sorry, Hisae," she wanted to claw at her own cheeks, bleed instead of cry, "I don't know what's wrong with me!" The last bit was a sob, and Hisae put her hand on her friend's shoulder. For a moment they stood there, taking relief in human comfort that was somehow dulled by their lack of understanding. Suddenly, Hisae took her hand away to brush at her hair, confusion in her eyes. A moment later, Yalith felt something wet against her palm, and a dull murmur of surprise seemed to rise from the city itself. Droplets of water dashed themselves to the ground, first a few, then so many that their sound was the roar of thousands fleeing. 

"Rain..." Yalith's voice was reverent. She held out her hand, watching the drops pool in her palm. 

Hisae stared upward, "It hasn't rained on Coruscant since before we were born! I don't believe it--"

"--I don't believe it," He says, standing in the balcony doorway, looking out at the rain. You smile at Him, feeling the raindrops slide across your skin, soak into your hair. 

"Don't believe what?" your smile is positively wicked, you sit on the balcony ledge in your wet nightgown and beckon Him to join you.

"Water from the sky!" He shakes His head, "Damn. It can't be real."

Your voice is soft, "Well, come out and enjoy it. There's---"

"--exception to every rule, I guess. But, wow..." the ebony haired girl shook her head, as if to stem the words tumbling from her mouth. She took Yalith's hand in her own. " We'd better get going, or we'll catch our death now." Yalith nodded, mute with the new weeping growing in the pit of her stomach. Can something be stolen when you never had it in the first place? She reached down, picking up her school bag and cradling it against her chest, as though for protection. She allowed Hisae to lead her towards the transport station, turning her attention to the strange silence that had overtaken the city.

With no understanding, she found herself wondering if Anakin still didn't believe in rain. 

* * * * * *

Until nightfall, Vader refused to let himself think of Padme, or the strange resurfacing of her signature in the Force.

Shut away from the world in his own, private mechanical Hell, Vader found himself slowly changing. Over the years, he'd noticed his own thought patterns change, grow more layered, until some of his memories seemed almost alien. In objective moments, he considered it the price extracted for continuing life supported by a machine; in times such as this, he was merely grateful. The link between Sith and Apprentice was thick and strangling; when Palpatine had first begun to teach him, the old man had been able to read each stray thought. At night, Vader's master sent him nightmares of Padme, moving against Obiwan, run through with a sword, and a thousand other little horrors that attempted to drive away affection for the one thing Anakin Skywalker really cared about. Stubbornly, Vader had held on, isolating Her from the rest of his life-- on good days he could make it so that she was not associated with his other life, she was merely a tantalizing vision. He loved Her so much that the love became grotesque. He hated her for loving the man he'd once been; for touching Anakin Skywalker, for laying alongside him. He loved her because he didn't know how to stop.

Slowly-- he didn't remember exactly when-- he'd began to realize that the Emperor no longer sensed his secret, ardent thoughts, and his own mind had become a rambling maze he couldn't comprehend. He could lift thoughts to other levels, keep them silent, if he consciously blocked in the Emperor's presence. So today, for the first time in many years, Vader had slowly laid the encounter with his wife high above detection. It wasn't completely fool-proof, for the Emperor's cobra gaze had rested on him far to long for comfort, but there was nothing specific to betray him. 

Now, alone in his chambers, he unfolded that moment and saw it once more. It had been her, standing on the high bridge. Her aura had brushed against his, suddenly after years of absolute void. He'd held her limp, smoldering china body in his arms, he'd laid her in the ground and watched the sand cover her, but... she was alive. 

__

She rises from the lounge, her hair and waist swaying ever so slightly before she slipping into his lap. It seems to him that her smile, now wide and full, holds all the mysteries in creation. Lightly, she brushed her hand across his brow, and he stared up at her silently. 

"I'd come back for you, if you took too long." 

"I will not tolerate this!" he cried, as if to deny the vision of Padme, smiling, eyes bright and honest. His arm swept across the table, merciless. Spare parts, data cubes, and holo equipment fell to their doom on the floor, and the sound of their breaking was the sound of the ceaseless roar in his years. Motionless and enraged, Vader cast his glance about the long room. In his private sanctuary, so vast and empty, the ghosts were particularly strong. Rain committed suicide on the high-domed roof, surreal, thrusting more memories upon him. Turning, he pressed a smooth button on the wall, sending for droids to clean up the wreckage on the floor. Dispassionately, he watched them race about, before he slowly reached out into the Force. She was still there, soul pouring against his. Intoxicating. The emotions were tumultuous and hard to decode, her where-abouts were vague. Still, within his deaths-head mask, Lord Vader lifted what remained of his mouth in a smile. She was somewhere on the planet, somewhere close by.

It would only be a matter of time before he found her.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Hisae squeezed Yalith's hand, feeling the tiny tapering fingers and the chill that seemed to come from the little bones themselves, then let go. The pearl metalic door of Yalith's apartment reflected their forms in shimmering tones of white, making them look like ghosts wandered in from a windy country side. Nearby, they could see a patch of cold stars though the round corridoor window-- it seemed as though night had followed them home. 

"Well..." Hisae began, moving her hands because she didn't know what to do them. Her body protested the movement; exhaustion had curled sleepily in her veins, and she wondered why it had taken them so long to get home. It came to her that, perhaps, they'd had a longer way to go than it seemed.

"It's alright, Hisae," Yalith didn't turn, simply stood with eyes like a doll's; glass marbles that had seen too much and nothing at all. "I can make t through the door. I'm not that bad off yet."

"I didn't mean it like that," the black-haired girl protested, watching Yalith's finger come up to rest against the pass key pannel. 

"I know," the other girl said as the door slid open. "Oh," she shrugged out of the violet fabric resting against her shoulders, "your coat. Thanks for letting me borrow it."

"You're welcome." They stood in the threshold now, half and half, before Hisae started down he hall towards the lift. "Say..." she turned, holding the jacket aganst her chest as though it was her only connection with her friend. "Call me when you're..." the words weighed against her tongue, sweet and sour, "when you're Yalith again, okay?" There wasn't any other way to put it.

"I will," the once familiar face smiled, and then vanished, until all Hisae could see was her own ghostly face.

-----------------

"Yalith Minborne," whispered Yalith harshly, pausing after wards with her mouth open like she could breathe the sounds right back in. "Yalith Minborne," she said again, because she needed so desperately to make sure she didn't forget. Mirrors are the enemy of man; you look in them and they show you everything on the surface and make you think 'f I wasn't here, where would I be...?' Now Yalith pressed her cheek against the cool polished looking-glass in the entrance hall and tried to grab for the disconcerting 'who am I?'. At least then, there was a specific 'I', something solid, even if it wasn't easy to define. Her breath spread like waves of an ocean, obscuring the mirror until she felt herself pouring out of her body with it. Her hands came up to the wall, pushed violently so that she stumbled with her arms moving like a gwaky baby bird.

"Yalith?" Hanip's voice, incarnation of the word 'matron' and everything it sounded like.

"I'm fine," she lied, so used to it that she didn't even feel guilty. She pushed past the nurse, not wanting the sleeping pills or the sedation syringes or the breathing apparatus that always seemed to sprout from the nurse's hands. Her touched off the wall in the kitchen, then curled around the knob of the refridgeration unit as she grabbed inside blinding. She relished the cold that rushed against her body, the jars shivering together as she moved them about. Red like autumn dripping down the window caught her eye; her hand was over the lid and then her fingers dipping inside. Kuroberries, moist and bursting like saddness on the tongue. The tears rolling down Yalith's face tasted no different. She swallowed them and held more to her mouth; she needed to eat to proove herself alive. Otherwise...

// You're sitting at the table, back straight and hands folded; and you're thinking that this is just like the Academy, were you learned that being lady-like was a lot like being dead. You've pushed your plate away and Bail is frowning at you over the crystaline dishes and the bottles that look like blood but really have wine. 

"Padme," Bail says, as though you are his child, or his little sister he has mind to swat at for being naughty. "You need to eat."

"I'm full," you say, because you are. You're ripe with your pregnancy, like a peach wth the sun tuching it just a little. The babies inside you radiate warmth so that you're only cold in your fingers and tes, but that funny little fossilized ruby in your chest just might be a heart again.

"You'll hurt the babies," Bail says. He thinks they're his, or likes to pretend he can make them be. He touches your belly like he's trying to erase the past and make up something new, so you just shy away these days. Right now you just look a him with the gaze of your new self, the self you cut Anakin out of so you can hold on to your children. Bail comes around the table and you move a little in your chair, protecting yourself, and you know somehow jus how the fear looks on your face with the light from the diamond chandlier. Bail has given you shelter in one way and left you unguarded in another, because he hates Anakin and hates Vader and doesn't understand the difference.

His hand is on your shoulder, he says, "Padme, please--"//

"-- please slow down, you'll make yourself sick!" It was Hanip's voice, and Hanip's hand on her shoulder, but Yalith herself was so blurred that she dropped the jar and lashed out anyway. Inside, she felt as though someone had opened their cupped hands, and now she was a creature with wings, beating desperately away from the living cage. She ran, and felt the heels of her shoes on the backs of her legs, felt her lungs become raw with protest. In the powder room off the entrance hall, she drapped over the side of the toilet like it was a coffin and was violently ill. 

//"Leave me alone," you say, climbing to your feet. You're thinking that you want to leave, that in avoiding Vader and hiding with Bail you're just exchanging one jailer for another. You move away, not running, but feeling purpose in your stride. You hold up the skirts of your heavy, pearl-encrusted gown, feeling as though the rich fabric is pressing down on your breast and hurting your children. You are warm, even as you leave the bright dinning hall and the faint sound of Alderaa's wind choir that Bail so likes. You have your children, suspended and safe inside, and you smehow think that you never want to give birth because you can't bare to have them in this dark and dirty world.//

She couldn't breathe. The smell of blood was heavy as the scent of honey-suckles when it's a cool summer evening and you're in love; it was a twisted smell, and it made Yalith curl inward as her body tried to tear itself to pieces and flush them down the drain. Her hands went to her stomach for comfort-- she needed to feel her babies and the roundness of her full moon body. She could count her ribs and her abdomen was cold stone and hurting; she felt so robbed that she screamed past the blood and took in and breath, biting on the ar with her teeth. There were people around her, white women like antiseptic angels.

"Where are my children?" she shrieked with the fear of every mother. Her mind conjured a demon of shadows who scooped up her babies like precious stones for inspection. She could see heir little handprints on the wall, black as death and reaching for her.

//You need to give birth though, you need to hold your babies to your breast and touched them with your hands, know that they are you and Anakin and love. You'll cradle them and murmur, "I love you, I love you so much and I'll never mean to hurt you." 

She hurt them and herself because she wanted Anakin to come home. //

"Where are my babies?" Yalith writhed in the hands belonging to the worried faces. Her body heaved with the last of it's sickness and she was taken to sit by the wall, where she kicked and dug her fingers into the tile floor until her nails bled. "Where are my children? Where are my children?" Metal touched her arm, pierced the skin and breathed liquid into her blood stream; she knew what it was and fought with what little time she had left. Her voice dropped an octive, sounding like a little girl frightened on a cold winter day as she slumped towards the ground. 

"Where are my children?"

And then she was silent, with her long hair spread over the pink and gold bathroom floor.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = 

Yalith woke several times, always in different places, and always with the strange, liquid sleep curling in her mind. Once, she was kneeling, a ripe apple of a woman, holding the muscles in her legs until she thought they would fray and break. 'You can do it', someone kept saying, someone who's pale eyes were no match for His blue, someone she respected but no longer trusted, someone who's hands would take away what she what he body released into the world on wings of blood. Later, she knew, she would fight him; her hands would be crawls, fighting those that held her down while his large ones bore a precious half away. 

'He loves you,' she knew he would say it, felt the words ringing in her ears. She was an iron maiden inside those words, pricked again and again. The man, the once trusted now-stranger looked at her with eyes that said all his mouth wouldn't; that he found her suspicious, strange, that any love she'd inspired had been her own fault. She would strike him across the face, draw blood with his nails, and tell him no one could count all the blame.

She woke again, with a hand trailing down her side, tracing, and warmth at her side. Because she was crying, standing outside the bed as well as laying in it, she didn't hear what He said, but it lodged in cradle of her hips anyway. 

'You're body isn't made of lines-- it's something different entirely,' and then, tying arms about her that almost hurt, 'Padme. I love you." With His lips in her hair, on the fine china spread of her ribcage, in so many places at once, 'I love you so much I can't breathe.'

Yalith bent upwards, her body arching like a delicate bow. There was an arrow pierced through her, she could feel it her heart and lungs, the two pressed together, could taste the silver on her tongue. Crying out, she begged to them all, her nurses and the thief and the one that she couldn't stop loving; I have been pierced through, I am dying and I'm already dead, help me. There was darkness for a while, and after that a place where it was could and He presumed her with his breathing hissing at her heels.

Her body protested when her soul finally lay still within it, and she once more remembered her mother's words, cut your skin open and your spirit bleeds out. It was wonderful to feel her body, her slim solid hands, the cold in her feet, she bit her lip and anchored herself.

"Nurse--," her voice was soft, she did not care which one came to her aid. A weathered hand cupped her own, pressed cylinders into her palm as though they were garnets. A voice said-- well, she really did hear it-- that she should take them, that they would leave her to sleep. Now the whispering of skirts, like the voices in the morgues when the living are away, and Yalith lay feeling her limbs, waiting. Lifting her fingers, then her hand, then the length of her arm, she stretched them speculatively, turning them over in the dim light from the city. Now her spine- roused like a serpent, the sirens of the deep- her legs over the side of the bed. There was no fear in her; she knew she was the same girl who had slipped like a dead flower petal between the cracks of consciousness. There were things she knew and had no words for; how raw she had once made her throat trying to find sounds for it! Looking to the shadows, she could see her Shadow Man in each angle of non-light; he would have the words for it, and though as strange and sweet to her as Death, she could see her finger dipping behind he's grinning black skull. There was someone else under there... and she almost cried for want. Rising, she left the sheets to settle like shed skin behind her, passed through the fresher door and felt herself reflected a hundred times; here I walk alone, I am a child, I am a queen-- here I drift in from the hot sun to someone with the impossible sky in his eyes (Are you an angel?) -- here my footsteps are like dancing, here we walk together and do not touch-- and here, here I am alone, passing through corridors and faces and here I know what the thing is called hell.

In the fresher, she touched her hand to the face in the mirror, and with her lips tilted up, she said, "Hey... you." For a moment, the mirror seemed to warm as though she was really touched flesh, before she took her hand away and reached into the drawer. The pills settled on the counter, clicking like the legs of metal spiders; in her hand Yalith cradled a jar. A cosmetics jar, the scalloped pink kind with a woman's perfect silhouette, and a gold lid with raised letters expressing hope or faith or beauty or something close to it. Turning the lid, the young girl breathed in deeply-- memory rose on the scent of old pearl lotion. The scent was her mothers, and the jar had been her mothers, but the myriad orange crimson blood light blue deep storm-sky pills were Yalith's. She knew them all, could recite their names and the ailments they were intended to ease-- the damage they could do on overdose was carved into the back of her spine. Delicately, she plucked up the new pills and dropped them in, watching them settle against their companions. Her wrist twisted quickly, with enlightened disinterest, sealing death for another time. She laughed at her mortality because she could not laugh at the shadow man; because if she wasn't amused by her own demise, she might think of happier times that never really happened in the first place. 

The rose-crystal clock on the wall read the time to be so late that it was early, and because the nurses had stolen time from her, Yalith did not go to bed. In the dim glow of the lamp on her nightstand, she reached under her bed and pulled forth another one of her mother's keepsakes, concealing Yalith's own things like a child in the womb. The lamp threw old, dusty yellow light on the ceiling and into her lap as she folded herself onto the window seat. Her pale hands cradled an ebony deeper than the stars and riddled with the colors of blood and the sky when snow is falling. Spreading the cloth over her knees, she wieled her needle like a sword, leaving crimson like wounds in her wake. She bent close to see her work, seeped from her fingers and into the fabric. It was like weaving a new body, or remaking in the old. Because she was thinking about the words she'd said once, when they'd been chained together, and exultant glow on his face, burning away her fear, she began to chant, like the sound of water breaking itself on the rocks.

"Needle, needle, dip and dart,

Thrusting up and down,

Where's the man who can ease the heart,

Like a satin gown?

Satin glows in candle-light,

Satins for the proud,

They shall say who watch at night,

What a fine shroud!" Tears came from her eyes; she dropped the needle to fling them from her cheeks. Only part of her understood what was happening inside, but the other drew comfort from it all the same. "Ani," she said, head bent, "Help me to hate you. Oh please, Ani," she choked and coughed and didn't care, "it was so much easier being dead."

Her eyes showed themselves to the world again-- she knew intellectually that she must have slept once more, but it seemed as though a mere single breath had passed her lips. The colors around here were bright and harsh, all a dirty yellow in the lamp light, and she looked past the confines of her room to see a figure hovering in the threshold, knowing instantly what had awakened her.

"What do you want?" she asked the man who answered to the word 'Father'. He look a step forward, let the yellow light touch him, and she could see his empty eyes through the thick glasses, saw the white of his hair obscuring it all. He was thin and lean, this man called father, he dressed in the uniform of an Imperial scientist, and he looked at the world as though the whole of it was in a test tube waiting for him to shake it up.

"I've...," he came to stand before her, opening his bony hands as if to take from her, "I've done a horrible thing. Oh, my daughter, forgive me..."

"It is not my place to give or with hold forgiveness," she said in a calm voice, water supporting a fallen leaf. 

"The world you live in is horrible now..."

Scarlet light, a voice, the flames (ANAKIN!!). 

"No more horrible than the one before that," she said diplomatically.

"The Emperor is so pleased," light came, brief and artificial, to her father's eyes, "oh, he laughs about it all the time. He picked the name for it, too." Father lifted his hands, to support his guilt, "Whole planets, gone. Stardust-- like the song your mother used to sing to you."

Yalith's voice quivered like a reed in a storm, " What are you talking about?"

He sank to his knees, laid his head in her lap with a violence that made her hands flutter-- frightened birds. The needle lodged itself in her palm, and Yalith was relieved to have her hand cry instead of her eyes.

"You remember that song you used to sing to little Yalith?" he was saying into her thigh, "The lullaby, Musei, the lullaby. And now, look what I've done for our baby..."

Yalith swallowed her scream, beating at his shoulders with her small fists, "Stop it! Stop it! It's me, my name is Yalith-- it's ME!" The shroud had fallen at her feet, she wanted to grab it up and suffocate herself. "Oh, please don't do this..." Her frightened eyes found her mother's portrait on the wall; hair so black it was blue, eyes the color of new gold.. it was wrong, it all was all wrong. They looked nothing alike. "Stop it! I'm not Musei!" she bit hard into her cheek, "I'm Yalith, your daughter!" Finally, terrified into childhood, "Papa, PLEASE!" He raised his head, bottle-glass green eyes clouded with sleep and things Yalith could not vocalize. The words for it landed in her stomach, dissolving into sickness there. 

"No, you're not Musei," his hands rested on her knees, as though he was praying, before he climbed to his feet, "I can see that you aren't, now."

"I'm Yalith," her voice was empty, and though the air was warm, she felt a chill creeping up her cheekbones. 

"Do you want you know what the Emperor is calling it?" he asked, pausing at the door.

"Calling what?" her legs drew together, comforting each other; she felt infinetly dirty and alone.

"The Death Star!" he clapped his hands, "I had very little to do with it, but I'm helping! The Death Star!" His voice drifted down the hallway, along with the sound of a closing door. Yalith imagined him in there, still talking to her Mother, who was dead and had to borrow other people's bodies sometimes. Fumbling, her fingers found and turned the lampkey, she let out her sorrow in one long dry sob. Her fingers tangled in the shroud, she drew it about herself for warmth. 

He wraps your smoldering body in His cloak; holds you like the child He once was to you. You feel Him touch your cheek, hear Him say a word that used to make sense to you, and though your eyes are open you can't see anything anymore....

That night, she slept in the cradle of the claw-footed bathtub, with her head pillowed on her shroud. She was afraid to sleep in her bed, afraid she might dream of old embraces, might 'wake' to feel His finger tracing the contours of her body and hear him whisper that word. 

Angel.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 

Once, Vader had removed his helmet outside his sterile atmosphere-- he'd stood straight and hated, letting only the dark side keep him alive. It was disgusting at times, to be dependent on the machines he'd manipulated so well in his youth. Now, too, Vader gathered his rage, let it weave through the material of his suit; he left the Doctor Antillie's office with quick strides, it was a reproach to depend on anyone else at all. His breath hissed out rhythmically, audible only because he could taste more air. Hands fisted at his sides, he descended the staircase, the high green curve of the building throwing all sounds back at him. It pleased him, at least, to know he was in functioning at peak condition; the Emperor had given him the task of hunting out the rebels in the city, and Vader felt sadistic pleasure at being able to strike so openly at the thing she created to betray him. She-- he moved what remained of his mouth to make her name silently, and reached out once more. Her indistinct where abouts reeked of Obiwan's tampering, but as long as she was on the planet, he could touch her whenever he liked. It was becoming old habit one more, to draw from her indescribable sheen, and he remembered with reluctance the time before; how her strange light had coursed through his veins, how sweet the nectar of her aura. The dark side paled, seemed to recoil, and Vader stopped at the foot of the stairs.

Padme entered with the cool Coruscant air, her hand linked with the gloved one of an older woman. The raven touch of her lashes veiled her eyes, she was absently folding a soft fur cloak over her arm, straightening the tight pleats of her black dress. To Vader, there was an explosion of all the things he associated with her; glass and the nightsky and swimming to an island out in the lake-- she stopped as suddenly as he had, a clockwork ballerina. Only the pull of her companion kept her feet moving with little disjointed steps. Looking at her, Vader saw that she was Padme and was not. His eyes adjusted to take in her face, a first unfamiliar, and then the one he knew well. Her features were not the same; her nose tipped up a little, her lips were smaller, and her eyes the color of sunset seen through wavering glass-- all silver and opal and red, with none of the brown from before. Somehow, her face was more than the things that lent to it, she looked exactly like Padme without any real similarity. Her hands held onto one another, lovely little things. He recognized her motion, too, the sway of her hair behind her, though it was now brown-red turning black at the ends, as though burned. He needed none of these things to know it was her, he was filled to the top with her sunshine moonlight presence, but he feasted on her appearance anyway; watching her mouth form a perfect cherry-rimed 'o'. Her eyes were wide, twin suns turned ebony -- he saw behind them that she was afraid, and something else he could not quite name. 

The white-clad woman ushered Padme past him; he saw his wife's profile, and felt the flickering shadows of a person he'd forgotten how to be. 

"Yalith," hissed the woman, "it's rude to stare." But he too, was staring; he turned to watch her move away, drank in the looks she gave him over her shoulder. As she came to the steps, she struggled to keep eye connect, speaking briefly to her companion. He did not hear what she said, but the pitch and tone of it nestled between his ears like a warm animal. The woman left, an anti-shadow, up the stairs, and Padme remained, leaning against the banister for a moment. She took one step forward, then another, always with her eyes on him; Vader felt the world once more become the one he had known-- the most beloved standing in the doorway and light, brought in my the hot desert wind. 

"No," she said, in answer to the old question, the one he did not ask. His breathing became shallow-- she was wrong, but he would contradict her later. It was as though the fire had never been, or else that had both been changed by it to the point where it no longer mattered. He did what he had wanted to do, had intended to do, when he found her in the echoing house.

Vader reached out and took Padme's small hand in his own.


	4. Cut and Cutting

"sitting in my glasshouse // while your ghost is sleeping down the hall // watching the little birds fly// kamikaze missions into the walls"

-"Glass House", Ani DiFranco, Not a Pretty Girl Album

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Faces in the Passageway 3a/?

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

http://www.demando.net/

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

You remember another part of this twisted fairy tale-- sometimes you think you're a child with fever, and these are the demons you see behind the beautiful face of Snow White, in the wicked Queen's mirror (god, how could she stand to *look* so much?), the chaos lingering just behind those happily ever afters. It never goes end that way, really; they just choose to stop the story before the next crest of the storm. You remember, standing, dripping in pearls, making words from the ancient, holy language that said you and he, together forever. 

And then there's something else, something after the fire; you're trapped in the pieces of your body, and you can't even scream. The sky is glass-- a coffin, and you know that your ruins will never truly mend. His face hovers, and you know it's not a ghost, or a wishful memory, because it's so grotesque. The fire has touched him and changed him too, but the worst is that you know. You know it's him tied up in the puppet strings, because you can see his eyes and god they are so blue...

"When I grow up," you say to your little sister. You're sitting on the narrow gray ledge outside the room your family shares. Swinging your legs in counter-time, you hold hands and gaze up through the myriad maze of skyscrapers to that little patch of azure sky that reminds you of home. "When I grow up, I will only ever marry someone with the sky in their eyes."

[I don't have a sister]

You do, and you don't. You are, and you aren't; you're the same, but all the rules and faces are different, and you don't know what is what. Desperately, you wish you could merge, be of both, but the parts won't go together at all.

(You and I are the same thing, and we're both going to die!)

The fire.

He's taken your hand in his-- leather clad fingers are stronger than your wedding band, and his breathing is the sound of death ridding over the sand...

You're so happy, you want to cry.

Yalith could see herself reflected in Vader's mask-- all wide eyes and a fear so much larger than everything that she buckled under it's force. Swiftly, she looked down to their joined hands, and pulled a slow breath into the shrinking space of her lungs. She could feel him looking at her, and knew that behind the polished ebony, his eyes were so blue it hurt.

"Anakin..." she said, to put a name to her sorrow. Now she flinched, half-remembering rage from him at those sounds. Anger did not come-- only the touch of his gloved finger, tracing down her cheek.

"Yalith!" the voice was sharp and alien, echoing from the upstairs corridor with the beginnings of worry. Slowly, Yalith took a step back, wondering how she had freed her hand and holding the appendage to her chest like an injured bird. "Yalith," and again, accompanied by footsteps.

"I'm coming!" she called, and groped blindly backwards for the staircase, overwhelmed by the sound of the ocean in her ears. It was Vader, the death-noise of his breath.

Her own labored respiration was in time with his.

'She was real is real and alive', Vader thought, even as her fingers disentangled themselves from his own with phantom grace. In the time before, she had been just as specter-like; something made of shadow and the light coming through the window-- even then, he always had to touch her to make sure she would not blur and fade with all the other, pleasant things. He watched the panicked rise and fall of her chest as she backed away, and anger flared within him that her body would betray her so readily. There was pain in her new, strange red-opal eyes, and he thought he could see the long ago fire therein. 

'I'd come back for you, if you took too long.'

He _reached_, binding the dark side to his will and moved his consciousness along the strings of her vocal chords. Here; the rung for her low whisper, and here the note of her determined command, and here the high, sweet note of her happiness. The damaged trachea was familiar, like looking in mirror; it was all by the hand of smoke and hideous heat. Now, pressing apart the walls of Padme's throat so that air might flow to her lungs, he touched the Force to the tissue in her lungs. One by one, the poisonous swelling vanished-- shimmering like bubbles that fly too high towards the summer sun. As when he preformed the trick on himself, he was careful as he withdrew his attention, and the thankfulness in her eyes stirred the young boy screaming somewhere, lost in the overwhelming armor.

"I have to go," she said, lips caressing the air, grateful to breathe. She turned suddenly, a blur of black skirts, and took up the steps as fast as her body dared. 

Stubbornly, Vader's mind worked the machines wired to it; he kept his arms still and did not reach out for her, he kept his legs straight and did not go after her. Bolts and wires and reconstructed nerves obeyed-- as faulty flesh would not have. Before, he had chased after her, and the smoldering remains of her consequence was something he could see any time he wanted. All he had to do was close his eyes. 

Somehow, she had transcended petty ivory bones, as he had transcended the ruins of the one called Skywalker.

Later, he promised himself, as he carefully moved the thoughts through the maze of his mind and stalked towards the Imperial Palace, where the Emperor waited.

Later. 

^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^

"Strip," Dr. Antilles' voice was dry and unimpressed as her eyes narrowed behind the faint pink tint of her glasses. Yalith hooked her fingers in the silver buttons of her ebony day dress automatically, her chin steady and level as the older woman's skilled hands touched over the scars that marked her body like a landscape. A map, Yalith though, with a sad internal smile, as though she was trying to get someplace and didn't quite remember the way. 

"This isn't new," the doctor murmured faintly, touching a raised line of red flesh 

high on Yalith's arm.

"No," Yalith answered, listening her voice echo in the sterile office, "I just pulled off the scab." Without thinking, touched two of her fingers to the wide, claw-like birth-mark on her back and shuddered. 

"I see," said Corrin Antilles, which meant that she didn't. She brushed a lock of strawberry hair behind her ear, and Yalith favored her with a smile. At least, the schoolgirl thought, she doesn't pretend to care. "Well," the older woman lifted the discarded dress between thumb and forefinger, draping it over her exposed patient, "They're all accounted for-- fifteen scars for nine suicide attempts. Now, if you'll get dressed again, we'll take a look at your lungs."

"Yes, Doctor," Yalith's voice was soft as she pulled the dress over her head and tried to work her hair free of its tangle on a button. She paused, gazing at the colored crystal data cubes littering the doctor's desk, before climbing like a lithe cat into the examination chair.

"Well, Missy," the doctor bit her lip as she bared the nape of Yalith's neck and touched a micro-holder to it, "Your last doctor complained of your occasional suicide attempts and petty self-mutilation, but I haven't seen a thing of it while you've been in my care." She swung her body past the instrumentation, looking Yalith in the eye. Their foreheads touched, and Yalith could see how the tint of Corrin Antilles' glasses changed her eyes from vague blue to a purple almost sad enough to be gray, "I'm not so egotistical as to think I had anything to do with that. You want to tell me why you've given up playing with knives?"

Yalith tilted her head, just slightly, so that her voice touched the curve of the other woman's ear, "I have to wait to die, now."

"Strange thing to say, for a girl who was so all-fired impatient for her own demise." Dr. Antilles pulled away, absently flipping a switch and running her fingers over the keys of her medical droid. "Your body seems to agree. Lungs stable for now-- not to say that you won't have any more attacks, but I think we won't see anymore deterioration until the weather warms up a bit."

The patient made a non-committal noise in the back of her throat. 

"Great," the doctor rolled her eyes, "my two most difficult patients in one day. If I didn't drink already, you'd both drive me to it."

"Both?" Yalith echoed.

"Scram, kid," Corrin Antilles ordered, removing the sensors from Yalith's pale skin, "See you in a week. Oh, and--"

The young girl paused at the door, and the light from the hallway made her seem like an entirely different person, "Yes?"

"Your blood read-outs show you haven't been taking your medicine," she frowned over the blue prism reflecting the data, "You're not planing to throw yourself an "all you can eat" pill party, are you? I don't have time to pump your stomach this month."

"Don't worry, doctor," Yalith's voice was sweet with the knowledge that her death would hurt no one, "I'll work it into your schedule before I do that." The door swung free in the child's absence, leaving Corrin with a slight chill she never really acknowledged. 

"This sucks rocks," she muttered, calling up the computer screen and finding it barred with a message that Lord Vader had taken the liberty of canceling the rest of her work day. The office was filled with the chiming of glass data as the young doctor scooped up files hurriedly-- all the while eyeing her orders and moving her mouth to form silent Corellian curses. "Once just wasn't enough, today, was it? Nooo," she pulled on her heavy wool coat with one hand, her hair and glasses sightly askew, "He has to ruin my day twice. God hates me." There came a click and several taps as Corrin locked her office, shaking her head as she moved her hunched form towards her speeder.

^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^

Vader had known Corrin Antilles since he'd risen from the ashes of his other self. She was, perhaps, the one kindness Palpatine had accorded him, even if that had served the Emperor well. She'd been the first to his grotesque body after the fire pit, and when she'd pulled aside the thick curtain over his bacta rich environment, she hadn't lied. 

"Straight off," she'd said, leaning down to look in the ruins of his face, "You're about this far," her fingers moved together, not pressing, but touching lightly, "from dying and you're a sorry sight to see." He'd leaned back into the warm chemical waves, submerging like a frightened serpent and watched her with narrow eyes. He'd hated her then, and that was what she was for. There was no coddling from Doctor Antilles; her hard arctic eyes had bored into him until at last she'd coaxed forward the blind, animal ferocity of his temper. He'd broken her leg that day, the dark side flexing and brushing her aside effortlessly. The next morning she came back on crutches to ask him whether he wanted to die, or finish wrecking the galaxy with his Master. A misanthrope in the most literal sense, she hated everyone and herself, so Vader never felt singled out. It was her long, claw-like hands that kept his breathing apparatus in top condition, and in a way he considered her an extension of his machinery. Only twice, in his mind, had she distinguished herself from the tubes and pumps, but it was enough to earn her a smidgen of grudging respect.

A woman had set fire to the Imperial Archives in the name of Queen Amidala, and the charred body looked so like Padme that Vader had found himself trembling close to insanity at the thought of her death. It was too close-- three months in the suit and five months under Palpatine had left him grasping at his lost wife's image with a love twisted into something else. Corrin had been merciless; took the body into her lab and whistled a wedding dance as she sharpened her scalpel under the harsh light. He'd stood in the corner, breathing his rage like the finest red wine. The knife went to the breast bone, split the body to the navel while Corrin talked in a recorder about the corpse's age and height and weight.

"You going to stand and wish me dead on the cutting table all afternoon, or are you going'ta leave?" she'd looked at him over her rose-colored glasses; she saw everything in tints of pink and said she could love only the most beautiful things, no matter how bad they were on the inside. 

"I'm sorry," sarcasm rushed through his vocoder, "throw back to Anakin. I find I still get upset when witnessing sacrilege. It's rude to cut up holy things." She'd sliced some more, then, handling the corpse almost tenderly. Her fingers ran along the empty woman's abdomen and she hissed through her lips. "This ain't your wife." Surprisingly, she didn't look at him, allowing him his private relief. "This lady's never been pregnant."

"Sabe," he'd said, and left without bothering to explain himself. 

Then, when the real death came, he'd carried the pieces of Padme back to his ship, encasing her in the life support chamber and feeling every moment of the possible two hours she could live without drastic assistance. Corrin had come to the threshold, taken a step forward and then looked about to turn on her heel. He'd seen her catch her breathe and hold her lips away from her teeth in silent reverence. Even shattered, Padme was beautiful; the most beautiful, and he could see that Corrin could not help but love her too.

"I'm gonna say something," she'd tossed her spoiled-strawberry hair, "and afterwards, I don't care if you kill me, or whatever." Silence from his end of the room, and she had continued, "You know song birds, right? Really pretty. Long feathered tails; things look like flying jewelry. On Dantooine, they sometimes take the best songbirds and preserve them. A song bird dies? They take the brain out and put it in a nice silver mechanical body; shines like the moon. It's not the same, though. They kill themselves, in the new body, break 'em right against their cages."

"You will help her," he'd said, and meant it.

"Sure," Corrin looked at the chamber, a funny smile on her face. Within, Padme was a grotesque Sleeping Beauty-- a rose with briars twisted around it. "Her lower face gone? Okay, we'll make a nice china mask to cover it. Her hands? I'm thinking gold wire mesh with garnets on the end. Nail-polish like. Real ladies have pretty nails. Her hair? We can do synthetics. It won't be near as nice as the real thing, but we can make it incandescent. Distinctive. Her breasts? I'm thinking you'd still like her to be soft, so maybe live silk. Exaggerate her curves too, perhaps, decorate her body with little crimson embroidery." The doctor put a finger in her mouth, considering, "Sounds like a mighty pretty cage."

He'd sent her across the room again with his power fisted around her throat, but he hadn't killed her. Instead, he'd sent everyone away and wept over his beloved, before he buried her in a cave on Tatooine. You don't cut up holy things. 

He refused to be blasphemous.

That was something that would never change.

"Lord Vader? Doctor Antilles is here, just as you asked. Grand Moff Tarkin also sent a courier to see why you did not attend the status conference. There's a disk here, but it's classified."

It was like always being born, the way the ceiling of his chamber lifted to reveal the rest of the world. "Do not dignify Grand Moff Tarkin with a reply," he informed the orderly, "Send the doctor in."

A pause, soft footsteps, and a snort of disproval. Eyeing the doctor, Vader very carefully sent her a pain at the base of her spine.

"Lord Vader," Corrin bowed. Discomfort flashed only briefly in her eyes, "You wanted the files on Yalith Minborne?"


	5. Masks

_**Faces in the Passageway 4?**_

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

Lord Vader's sanctum was smooth and chill, black stone on black stone, shades of non-light deepening into spectrums that became dark and eerie mirrors. High vaulted and supported with columns of disturbing, twisted volcanic rock, it was a shell to suit the creature existing within it-- the dream of a precise and maddeningly sane mind. Corrin Antilles made her way down the hall towards the inner chamber itself, a thing of blinding white against the darkness, like the jaws of some creature ready to consume. Her gaze flickered constantly, never resting in one spot, for everywhere the polished surfaces reflected back muted ghosts of her image, at once blurred and all too distinct.

"Lord Vader," she said, dropping a strange hybrid of a curtsy and a bow. "You wanted the files on Yalith Minborne?" Her starched white tunic rustled loudly against her stockings, the only sound besides the merciless sea-tide of Vader's breathing. For several long moments, she stood there, carry case held like careless schoolbooks against her hips, strands of strawberry blond hair in her face. Finally, she snorted, despite the pain she felt seizing at the small of her back. "Are you going to say something?" she prompted.

"You forget your place, Dr. Antilles," Vader said, and though his posture never changed, his form somehow seemed more threatening. Corrin's stance shifted just slightly, that of a child who respects and fears fire, but is compelled none the less to punishingly risk. A wave of Lord Vader's hand and a small, skeletal droid moved forward, tray at the ready. The colored data cubes clinked softly as Corrin laid them down.

"You have been treating this woman for some time?" Vader inquired, rising to take the cubes, placing the first delicate blue one in the large holo reader. Yalith Minborne's visage appeared, particles of light given structure; a fresh and somehow eerie youth, riotous red-brown hair pulled half away from her face. It was a school holo, as recent as the new semester, but looking at it now Corrin felt an uncomfortable knowledge building in her, far from her rational brain. Somehow the image of Yalith seemed different from the girl she had treated earlier that afternoon. Behind her rosy glasses, Corrin's eyes narrowed, the only outward sign of a frown.

"She's hardly a woman," Corrin said, not moving forward. Vader stood before the cylindrical dais, unmoving, a forest beast studying something living in the light. The image of Yalith gazed outward, smiling a small, sad little smile that was at once inviting and still clearly a mask. The high, stiff color of her Academy uniform made her face seem even more pale. "She'll turn sixteen in eight months, so she'll still technically be underage when she attends the Dance of 500 in the spring. Not," she murmured with heavy, dry knowledge, "that this particular fact is going to stop anybody."

Off in the shadowed recesses of the hall, something snapped and broke, an abrupt and echoing exclamation. Vader's mask turned on her fully, so swift and unblinkingly fierce that Corrin took a step back, biting the inside of her cheek. Never the less, she continued, "You know what goes on at these things. The girls are presented to the Emperor, may he live long and well," the last was said so quickly that the phrase became one word, almost nonsense. "After that, it's an open market." She snapped her fingers smartly, almost sing-songing, "Come one, come all to the slaughter house, get your brides young and tender, oh how they squeal."

"I am well aware of the aristocracy's decadence, Dr. Antilles," Vader said, his voice without heat or cold. "I want information."

"It's not as if her family is really well off enough to be included," Corrin went on after a moment, struggling past the slight pressure that Vader's will, iron and invisible, was exerting on her throat. "However, her father is one of the Emperor's pet scientists, top level, black-box and all that."

Inhale. "You have treated her for some time?" Exhale.

"She moved here when she was eleven-- her mother was already dead, her father presumably took the position to pay for her medical bills. At first, she was under the care of a Dr. Yuheda, in the Amalone District. She was transferred to me when her father was promoted." Sardonically, "I'm not cheap, you know." She took a shallow breath, "I'm to understand she has a cadre of nurses with her at home, not that's stopped her from playing a little spade-side Sabbac with Lady Death."

"Suicide?" There was almost a hint of surprise in Vader's tone, and he turned to study the image one more, seemingly drawn to it.

"Got it in one," Corrin said cheerfully. "I took her on about a year and a half ago. She hasn't tried any of that since I've been treating her, but time was, she was giving it her best shot three or four times a year. She started young-- eleven, I'd say." Though Vader said nothing-- death's head still riveted in the flickering light of the holoproj-- Corrin sensed the air change slightly, and felt compelled to explain, "Everything about her medical diagnosis is in the cubes. She's a doozy, all right-- her lungs are the most obvious problem, but that's not even the half of it. From what I've seen, her father's not the most stable individual in the universe-- he's got the science bug. All work and no humanity, dubious value though that has."

Breathing still regulated, but lengthening. At last, "And the girl herself?"

Now Corrin's pinched features registered real surprise, and she pushed her glasses up on her nose. "As a person?" she asked dubiously, clearly unused to such a question. Especially, she flinched internally, from this particular source. "She's a nice enough girl, I guess, if you like that sort of thing. Pretty isolated socially, but considering her peer group, that may just be a sign of good taste. I don't know-- she's got a lot of empathy and feeling, but at the same time, it's like she's not there. Can't say I'm fond of her-- but you've got to admire her knackers."

"Your meaning, doctor?" There seemed almost the faintest ribbon of humor in Vader's tone, patient amusement, but Corrin knew it was not directed at her.

"Well, she's got a spine, is all. She's got no love for the Empire-- wrote a pretty daring essay on the responsibilities of government and the definition of justice for Academy testing last year, almost got suspended for it. She's lucky she didn't get worse. I guess she managed to dance around any real criticism. I had to read it, what with that Articles of Proper Citizenship-- make sure she didn't have any," Corrin lifted her hands half-mockingly, "'rebellious pathologies'. She seemed to feel pretty strongly about it, but I'll be shot to sithspawn if you tried to call her a rabble-rouser. She's got class-- could call her a politician, if they weren't all lying sacks of Hutt-rotted mynok droppings."

"I find that unsurprising," Vader remarked, and the sentence hung in the air, seemingly without context. Something about dark Lord's stance, his rapt and unwavering attention, curdled the skin along Corrin's stomach, conjuring ghostly hangs from the past. Big, work roughened hands, under a small cotton nightgown. Shuddering visibly, Corrin opened her mouth, eyes widening even as the words came out. "A little young for you, isn't she?"

The blast that hit her was formless and without mercy, a Force of darkness so true it could not be seen. It slammed Corrin backwards, the angry, uncaring hand of some demonic god, until her body met rudely with the marble wall at the far end of the room. There was a dull, china-cracking thud as her body met with the paneling, and she slumped, form like a stingless puppet, before she was hoisted again by her neck, throat closing around her scream. Vader stood motionless, hand raised in one great black fist. He was looking at her, really looking, and Corrin fervently wished he wasn't. For the first time since she'd seen his white, grave-shade's face in the bacta pool, Corrin Antilles felt truly, honestly afraid. Not the healthy fear of a being so coiled and dangerous, not the ginger, respectful handling of something with endless, hungry fangs. This was a naked terror, plain her face, and it sunk into her bones even as her skin began to bruise from pressure.

"You will never imply such a thing again," Vader's voice was as uncompromising as the ghostly fist around her neck. "Breathe a word that even hints at such, and I will not hesitate to make sure it is your last." Corrin nodded, as quickly and desperately as her trapped body would allow and, when his will released her, she lay unmoving, cool stone tile a balm against her cheek. She did not move, even as Vader turned to examine the other data cubes, sending several small, hunched droids scuttling with a wave of his hand. Relief did not come to her, as it does after a violent storm-- she understood the difference between Vader's swift anger and this unimaginable, virulent protectiveness.

'Dr. Antilles to autopsy room four,' she thought in a dizzy, giddy haze of pain, 'we have proof of an organ previously thought nonexistent.' She imaged it there, on a clear silver table-- Vader's heart, wrapped and rotted, black and veined, dead but still pumping like some endless gasping scream. A revenant, dug up in the dead of night.

After some time, she was able to rise without blacking out, though pain draped her in a cloak of iridescent, red-hot nerves. Slowly, carefully, she left the chamber, and Vader spoke not a word. She drug herself, with all her own hate and that little, cotton-clad girl's fear, to her speeder, and was mercifully driven away.

At home, Corrin Antilles dressed her external wounds, took a heavy shot of Corellian firewater, and swallowed pills she should never have prescribed to herself. She slept, was dreamless, and put Yalith Mindborne firmly out of her mind.

_From the files of Doctor Corrin Antillies, Registered Chest and Thorasic Healer:_

NAME**: Yalith Kage Minborne**

DATE OF BIRTH: 19th Day, 15th Month in the Galactic Standard Year 3099

GENDER: Female

CITY: Altaire

PLANET OF ORIGIN: Koe

SPECIES: Humanoid

FATHER: Dr. Souji Minborne, Microlaser Physisist

MOTHER: Musei Randein, School Teacher

PHYSICAL DIAGNOSIS: 

Patient suffers from accute Degenerative Lung Disease, which corrodes the outer layer of the lungs (see notes on Parentage. This disease is unique to those from the Noad Cluster systems, planets including Boath, Daigor, Naboo and Semilee), preventing tissue from transfering oxygen to the bloodstream. Dead cells and blood collect in her lungs and block the esophogus. Alergens (see list of Reactions) and emotional stress may trigger attacks of coughing, vomiting, and loss of conciousness.

This disease is mostly genetic, though neither of her parents' blood cultures show any immediate DNA history of such. Though degeneration can be slowed, this variant of Lung Disease will proove fatal.

TREATMENT:

Patient has been perscribed up to five different pills, to be taken in combinations according to the severity of her attacks. (See perscription list.) In addition, Miss Minborne has been supplied with a portable breather, which will release medication designed to relax her throat muscles and allow air to pass through. Red Water therapy (usually used with burn victims) has prooved benificial, but the effects are not long-lasting. At current rate of remission and decay, the patient will probably only live to her twenties.

NOTES:

Though her body is already incredibly fragile, Miss Minborne has a habit of abusing it further. Patient has on two occassions over-dosed on a mixture of perscription drugs and Correllian-spiced brandy to near-fatal levels. Another suicide attempt was made by cutting her wrists, which has, to some extent, further hampered her blood circulation. In total, Miss Minborne has attempted to destroy herself a number of five times. (See case history, as these incidents occured while patient was not under my care).

Further, the young lady in question indulges, from time to time, in petty cutting. Most of her self mutilations are in the abstract shape of wings, drawings of flames and/or random symbols. (Her previous doctor identified at least some of these as coming from Huttese charms, but such similarities may be only coincidental, and have not prooved conclusive during Miss Minborne's treatment.)

MENTAL DIAGNOSIS:

Patient was accurately diagnosed at the age of five with extreme pyrophobia. Her original doctor decided to concentrate solely on this fear-- through a series of therapies, Miss Minborne has reached the point where candles and other common-place uses for fire only give her discomfort. Her reaction to large, open flames is considerably less controlable. At the age of seven, she began attempts to end her life; after the first two, this devolved for a few years into the simple cutting mentioned above.

Originally, Miss Minborne was diagnosed with Fractured Personality Disorder by her third doctor (see case history for complete list of healers and medics consulted). Her symptoms included fugue states, during which she would 'blank' out, refusing to answer when her name was called and failing to recognize family members/close friends. Patient also suffers from occassional sleep paralysis and night terrors-- the majority of her nightmares, when she will talk about them, revolve around her fear of fire and a 'Death's Head', who offers her his hand. It has been hypothisized that she may be a victim of sexual molestation-- however, aside from the overwhelming male presence in her dreams, there is really no evidence to support such a theory. It is my considerate opinion that this 'Death's Head' is not a literal figure, but instead a personification of the things inside herself Miss Minborne unconciously refuses to face. That she has attempted her own death so many times figures in greatly. Patient also has 'waking dreams', during which she relates to those around her in an somewhat different manner. (Only three of these episodes have been documented-- twice Miss Minborne at the time only eleven asked to see her children)

Later tests have proven the original diagnosis of Fractured Personality Disorder to be false. Under hypnosis, Miss Minborne will still respond to her name, and-- when asked who is present in her mind-- replies that it is only, 'myself and me'. When questioned further, she only answered, 'We are the same thing, two me-s, I and I, one person". These two "entities" are not individual enough on their own (though Miss Minborne is certainly very individual in and of herself!) to be called seperate personalities; in fact, they overlap in almost every area. "Yalith" seems to have active knowledge of the world around her, while the other has some limited active and complete passive understanding, and knows some things "Yalith" does not. It is the opinion of this doctor that Miss Minborne suffers instead from Dissociative Phantom Personality Disorder, in which her concious and unconcious mind have an unusually large "gap" between them. The Yalith I speak to during sessions is essentially the Yalith at the core, give or take a few minor details.

TREATMENT:

Sleeping pills have been perscribed in addition to her other medicine. Since her personality disfunction is not severe, and because her "selves" are not fully seperated, the two 'entities' can not readily be merged-- her DPPD and the root of her 'Death's Head' nightmares remain untreated.

NOTES:

Though young Miss Minborne is rather bright, creative, and confident in herself, she clearly lacks a drive to involve herself in daily living, and has a fear (which almost borders on distaste) for people in general. While compassionate and willing to help others, she does not wish to become close or involved with many-- a sort of emotional shielding.

**FILE DOWNLOADED FROM KYOSHIMA CLINIC MAINFRAME, ON THE 3RD DAY OF THE SEVENTH MONTH OF GALACTICA STANDARD YEAR 3114.**

**FILE ENCRYPTED, LOCKED, AND REMOVED ON PERSONAL ORDER OF LORD VADER.**


	6. Promises to Keep

_**Faces in the Passageway, 5a?**_

_by Meredith Bronwen Mallory_

_mallorys-girlcinci. Vader paid no attention to Dr. Antilles as she struggled haltingly to her feet, nor did he heed her silent exit. Instead, it seemed as if her words were scrabbling against his ears, like the vulture insects of Tatooine, embodiments of a planet that ravaged its dead. Her voice was gone from him-- it was another, deeper pitch that spoke, rattling the cages of the skeletal past._

_'She's a politician, and they're not to be trusted.' _

(dismissive, complacent, self-assured.)

_'Dreams pass, in time.'_

(they pass, all things pass, they die bound at wrists and ankles in the cold, rotting tents of things that walk like men...)

_'You were like my brother.'_

(and then there was fire-- there was fire and a pain beyond the scope of the word, liquid and towering, stalking through dreams)

_'A little young for you, isn't she?'_

Vader looked, gazed without context upon the person his wife had become, and saw a girl. A delicate creature with ancient eyes and regal bearing, filled with knowledge but at the same time stumbling, coltish, on uncertain ground. Like a fine jewel placed in a new setting, this girl was Padme at a different angle, facets catching and reflecting the light.

And she was young, scarcely older than the first time his eyes had rested on her, free of the lenses that now defined his world. She had entered with the wind and heat, noon brightness all around her, so that he had been certain she was made of light. A chance glimpse into some other world, and if he turned his head the wrong way she would vanish as suddenly as she had come.

She spoke to him, and he was entranced.

She was kind to him, and he was grateful.

And, in the chilly predawn of the race, she'd sat with him in the courtyard of slave-quarter's miserable hovel, using a stick to draw signs for good luck in the sand. Hand over his wrist, she'd showed him the complicated loops of her native tongue, her longing as open as bone wrenched free of flesh. Vulnerable but determined.

He loved her then.

He loved her now. The pits of Mustafar had stripped much from him, had warped and changed him as something organic is petrified to stone. But fire was fallible, and her memory remained. Somewhere, there was a little slave boy still, laying silent on his pallet as he watched her shadow in the dark, her even breathing like the rhythm of some river underground-- secret and sacred. On a world where a cup full of water could be worth more than gold, stories traveled, ghostly compatriots of those first colonists consigned to Tatooine. A river, they said, deep beneath the rock and dune, hoarded by a planet that worked arthritis into your very soul. Endless water, flowing in the dark, where empty cities lay, forgotten totems that reminded, 'everything comes with a price'.

Oh, there was a price, the stories said. The toll was high; a mouthful of water for your memories, blessed relief for an eternity of wandering alone.

Padme Naberrie had entered that river; it had embraced her body and swallowed all trace, so that when she rose again she was Yalith Minborne, unaware that everything was the same. Beneath her frozen surface, something quicksilver flickered, that essential center which nothing could touch. That his wife was at once dead and living seemed little contradiction to Vader-- his own existence hinged on such irreverent balance. His love for her had been a child's love, then that of a man, and that of a friend. The progression was as natural as aging itself.

He would commit no blasphemy, perpetrate no sacrilege.

Once, in the lengthening twilight of Naboo, he had taken her small, ringless hand in his own. He had promised to love her, to protect, and to have faith-- words he'd carved into a medallion many years before.

'I'd come back for you, if you took too long.'

She had keep her promises.

He would keep his own.

Dawn came to Coruscant, gray-pink and diffuse, filtering away the night. Yalith stood in the kitchen, dressed in only her shift and stockings, a single lock of hair falling as she bent over the counter. She was cutting ojubu fruit for her lunch; the click of the knife was dull and rhythmic as it sliced through the thin blue skin.

Click, click-- she peeled away the filmy covering and set the slices aside.

Click, click. And again.

She watched her hands while she worked, feeling curiously detached, almost as if they were not her own. From within, she felt a curious stillness, like that of a silent ocean unwilling to reveal its secrets. A foreign ocean, in which no land or points of reference could be found, until the horizon blurred and sky began to look disturbingly like the sea.

'You're in shock,' she thought to herself. And, on the heels of that, an older voice murmured, 'Enjoy it while it lasts.' This was a familiar numbness, though, one which allowed her to function regardless of cracking heart or the sound of heavy, metallic feet in the streets of beloved home. The ebony, expressionless face of Darth Vader hovered in her minds eye, masking some other treasured visage, and a little boy's voice saying 'I don't want you to forget about me.' In her dreams, she cupped his small cheek in her hand, and told him that even death could not make her forget.

"Miss Yalith?" the query was quiet, but startling. Yalith set the knife down, turning to see Nurse Genea standing in the polished chrome threshold, holding a clean school uniform draped over her arm. Yalith smiled briefly, placing the fruit in her lunch canister before she washed her hands. The nurse pursed pale peach lips and tugged impatiently on her white veil.

"Thank you, Genea," Yalith murmured, slipping the stiff cotton uniform over her head. A thin trace of resentment flickered in her heart-- she was honest with herself enough to realize that she sometimes disliked her caretakers as much for who they were not, as she did for their actions.

_Hooded faces, secret smiles. The squeeze of a hand, silent support. _

_"We are brave, your majesty."_

"You're welcome," Genea sighed, stepping back as Yalith slipped past her. Deftly, quickly, the school-girl parted her hair, drawing it into loose buns that dangled on either side of her face.

She heard, rather than saw, the nurse moving in the kitchen, calling out lightly, "You're not a maid, Genea-- you don't have to take care of my lunch, too." Part peace offering, held out the same way her smile was. 'We don't agree,' said the harmony under her tone, 'but let's not fight.'

"You shouldn't be going to school today," the nurse muttered, tidying the lunch canister and wrapping it in a loose kerchief. "You missed the first two cycles-- and you did scream so, last night." Almost unnoticeably, Yalith stiffened, knowing her offerings had been refused.

"They were nightmares, Genea," Yalith said, accepting the canister. Fetching her shoes, she perched herself on a low stool to tie them. "Everyone has them. Besides," she added, before the other woman could interrupt, "I want to go, I like to go."

"Winds know why," Genea said, and then, under her breath, "Doesn't really matter, anyway."

Yalith looked up sharply, eye narrowing. "I don't appreciate that."

Genea crossed her arms over the white yoke of her bosom. "All you do is cause trouble, disagree'n with your teachers every five minutes. For such a little thing, you do take a lot of work."

"I suppose you'd like it better if I just stayed in bed," Yalith remarked dryly, well aware that things had swiftly gotten away from her. So much for being peaceable. Her movements became more terse as she finished tying her shoes, the only real outward sign of her anger.

"You'd do us all a favor, instead of sitting around spoutin' disloyalties left and right. You're too young to remember what it was like under the Old Republic, but I can tell you--"

"I don't glorify the Old Republic," Yalith said, closing her eyes. With a deep breath born of long experience, she said clearly, "It had it's problems-- I don't know how many times I have to tell you that I disagree with that sort of nostalgia. The Old Republic was corrupt and dying. But that doesn't mean that we have to just lay down and accept whatever the Emperor hands us."

_(What if the Republic we swore to protect no longer exists?)_

"Things are safe, orderly," Genea pointed out.

"Stifled, restricted," Yalith corrected, voice staccato. "Freedom is important-- and that means freedom to make your own decisions, even if they might be the wrong ones."

_(Have you ever considered that we may be on the wrong side?)_

"No one asked what you thought," Genea said, following Yalith as she went down the hall. "What makes you so sure you know better than anyone else?"

"That's the idea of a democracy," Yalith said, fighting hard to keep her teeth from biting into the words. "The people make the decisions, so no body 'knows better' than anyone else." Genea opened her mouth, but her charge had already slipped around the corner. In the back of the nurses' mind, it gave her just a little chill, how ghost-like and silent Dr. Minborne's daughter could be. She stood in the threshold, watching the other with discomfort in her spin and perhaps a trace of envy.

_So this is the way liberty dies. With thunderous applause._

There was a tightness in Yalith's stomach, like the clenching of a fist. Not for the first time, she marveled with a sort of half-horror at those who would rather be told what to do. To follow anyone with direction, content to turn a blind eye and never step out of line, even if the person behind or in front of them vanished, a mere whisper of a scream.

Sentient nature? Perhaps. But while the marrow of Yalith's bones was etched with an intimate understanding of fear, she could not understand complacency.

_('You can't take on the whole Empire yourself, Yali.')_

The words were Hisae's, but they were wielded by someone else. Someone without a voice-- Yalith's shadowy twin, born within her own body; the girl who saw if she looked deeply enough into the mirror.

With a deep breath, Yalith straightened her skirts. _'Maybe not,'_ she conceded internally, feeling a strength both old and new, _'but just watch me try.'_

Ignoring her white shadow, the young girl went about gathering the few books she'd left out in the gray-blue parlor, slipping them into her school case. "You need to settle down, stop embarrassing your father." Then, needling in just as deftly as administering a shot; "You're to be presented at Court soon, and you'd just better hope your mouth doesn't put suitors off. What's he gonna do if he doesn't get an offer for you?"

"I'm not getting married," Yalith bit the inside of her lip, buttoning up her wool coat. For a moment, her face was utterly without color or blood, as white and foreign as the moon. It was as if she could feel her skull behind her blank expression, fashioned of brittle ice. She tied her scarf over her hair, grabbing her train-pass from its slot by the door. "Not to anyone, especially some Imperial drone. Heaven forbid I actually have a brain."

"Ungrateful child," Genea said, just shy of venomous.

Yalith looked back over her shoulder as the pearl-chrome door slid open, bringing a breeze from the apartment corridor. "I'm going to school," she said coolly. Then, with a childishness that was refreshing because it was purely her own; "You wonder why I like to go to school? It gets me out of here."

She let the door slide loudly shut behind her.


	7. The More Things Change

**Faces in the Passageway 5b/?**

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

True to Doctor Antilles' word, Vader had no difficulty finding a dossier on Yalith Minborne in the records of Imperial Intelligence and Security. The reach of Palpatine's gnarled hand was long, and getting longer-- the Emperor had created the IIS very shortly after seizing power, structuring it to be completely independent of police and bureaucracy, centralized on the capital planet-city alone. The danger of rabble rousers and separatists was no lost on Vader; even before he'd glimpsed the fiery orb of Mustafar, sparkling like sunlight on blood, he had known that the galaxy must succumb to the order it seemed to determined to reject. Deep in the back of his skull, a memory lingered, glimpsed over the scratchy holofeed in Qui Gon's quarters. The Queen of Naboo, face white as sand-bleached bone, saying that the Republic no longer functioned, that she held no allegiance to a body that would discuss her people's suffering in committee. The powder, paint and guilt of Padme's office had veiled her from him then, but her words had moved him, mirroring the pain of the handmaiden who'd soothed his fears in the coldness of space. It wasn't until Naboo that he understood her doubleness, how her true self flickered like a nereid under the frozen sea. All the strength in her lithe form had gone into attempting to fix the lumbering, failing government, but her dedication alone could not cut through the lashings of deceit, lying everywhere, a sickly seaweed waiting for prey. With his own hand, he had fixed what she so longed to mend, resorted order and power to the hands of someone wise enough to shoulder their weight. And she had not lived to see its fruition.

("You did not allow her to live." Always Obiwan's voice, like the stale air of a tomb that would not dissipate, leaving long practice the only reason anger did not rise in Vader along with his mentor's echo. No, rage came later, as the image of Padme's prone form rose to the surface of his mind. Her face, so pale, expression pained even in the darkness of her sleep. Bruises rising, such a strange shade of violet, around her neck.

And, later still, skin peeling with heat, hair alive with embers and ash, as she lay dying in the antiseptic snow. He'd held her while the houses around them caught the blaze, bathing everything in jaundiced light. She had struggled to speak, then, and in the pale column of her throat he'd seen that the shadows of those bruises lingered, faint but discernible.

He did not know what she had been trying to say-- her voice was lost on the same wind that spread the fire.

"She would have understood," Vader told himself, even as the instrument panels in the chamber quaked and quivered. "In time, she would have seen that I was right-- I would have made her more than a Queen." With great effort, he reigned in the dark manifestation of his pain before it did any permanent damage. The anger had no target-- it lashed out blindly at the senselessness of her death and had, on more than one occasion, been like a knife in his own respirator.

As if it could name the culprit, even if he himself could not.)

But the IIS did not just keep files on suspected rebels, or the myriad underground social and political parties that had hatched from the Republic's corpse. There were records too, on meek academics and artisans, on mothers who had participated in the Food Riots on Malestare and Dantooine. To the remnants of a boy who'd spent his life internally resisting the ways he'd professed outwardly to follow, this seemed superfluous. Palpatine longed to warp and rifle through every heart and mind, but Vader was much more pragmatic. What did it matter what people felt in the silence of their own minds, as long as they dared not move against the stability the Empire imposed?

One of Vader's many black service droids interrupted his reverie, trundling forward with several data cubes in its spindle-like hands. Vader took them, movements etched with an odd anticipation as he examined their contents. The reader's screen pulled up another image of Yalith, this one much more solemn-- the required picture for every Imperial Minor's ID. Here it was the set of her lips truly betrayed Padme; the regal set of her chin. For a moment, Vader was taken aback, as he felt the muscle in his jaw draw up. It was only after some thought that he realized he was smiling-- just a small quirk of the mouth, but one so unpracticed it felt utterly alien. This girl was Padme. She needed only the pale powder and red paint to look the very image of the Queen he'd stared at so bashfully during the Liberation Parade.

Beneath the image was a long list of minor offenses-- attempts to purchase banned books, requests for access to historical documents deemed unsuitable for the general public. She had also been involved in a short-lived student group concerned with the power invested in territorial governors, and several of her teachers delicately called her not outright rebellious, but at the very least 'subversive'. Among the connected documents was a copy of a handwritten essay criticizing over centralization, claiming that the Emperor's refusal to delegate certain powers lead to suffering in the Outer Rim. With the penmanship was more angular than Padme's had been, there was something in the graceful execution that was powerfully familiar. A lifetime ago, there had been more than one occasion when he'd let himself into Padme's apartment, only to find her bent over some speech or petition, desk littered with references and palm smudged with purple-black Nubian ink.

Superfluous or no, the dossier was informative, listing Yalith's address, as well as the exact department in which her father worked. With a casual brush of the Force, Vader summoned another droid to him, and began to dictate its precise instructions.

By the time the lift opened on the floor below her own apartment, all the comfort of Yalith's irritation had faded, leaving only a wry, self-mocking smile on her face. Arguing with Genea was like arguing with a brick wall-- it consumed energy that would be much more useful elsewhere. And yet, though Yalith compromised more often than not, she could not completely keep herself from crossing the older woman. A snatch of poetry drifted through her mind, all the more disconcerting because she could not recall reading it.

"I will not be silent/ even as the avalanche consumes / I shall scream-- I do not bend / even to forces they would call unstoppable."

In the recesses of a memory that felt far too recent, Yalith glimpsed an image of her mother, blue-black hair and light eyes framed by Koe's copper light.

"My brave little soldier," Musei Minborne had remarked on more than one occasion. "You'd fight a whole war by yourself." Biting her lip, the young girl closed her eyes, though against the present or the past she did not know. Her mother had died, body curdling, shortly before her father had taken them to Coruscant. An accident they called it-- some new substance, untested by mass-manufactured in the same building as her mother's lab. One cracked canister and the entire complex had to be evacuated, everyone heaving a sigh of relief when it seemed no one had been harmed. How bitter that same relief tasted later, when colorless white blotches began to cover her mother's back, making each vein as easily seen as a specimen through glass. There'd been very little time between that first outbreak and the burnished metal coffin that carried Mother away-- in between, her rain-straight locks came out with slightest brush of the comb, and tears of blood stained her pillow. Sometimes, Yalith dreamed of another woman called 'mother', but always in her heart, there was a place solely for Musei, who'd carried her infant body against her breast, and soothed Yalith's tears when nightmares drew her into a maelstrom of someone else's life. It was only later that Yalith realized just how bad things had gotten after her mother's death, as if someone had cut a delicate cord, and left her adrift in a violent sea.

Swallowing hard, Yalith moved her hand in the quick Koean ritual for the dead-- hand to heart, to rib, and then forehead, lifting up a silent prayer for her mother's soul. This completed, Yalith rounded the corner to Hisae's apartment, glancing briefly down at the flower-shaped face of her chrono. Her lips quirked a little-- the fight with Genea had made her early. She had scarcely come to a stop when the door of 402-J opened, allowing her friend to storm through. Hisae was racking a hand through her bob of ebony hair, smock and uniform jacket buttoned askew. A young man followed her out, and his hand on her shoulder so startled her that she dropped her bag.

"Today must be the day for dramatic exits," Yalith said sympathetically, bending down to help Hisae gather her things. The other girl's smile was brief but grateful; she held open her bag so Yalith could slip several already abused text-readers inside.

"You too, huh?" Hisae raised an eyebrow, square jaw set in annoyance.

"I'm an ungrateful, seditious, un-pious daughter," the other girl said dryly.

"Ooh," Hisae said, adopting suitably impressed expression. "I'm a spoiled brat who's not fit to carry the semi-aristocratic blood of our family, and who should have been born a boy if only to save her mother from the hideous embarrassment."

"What happened?" Yalith asked as they both climbed to their feet.

A deep tenor broke into their conversation; "Little Hibi here asked mother if she could take an Astronavigation during the holiday period." More than a little startled, Yalith turned her attention to the young man she had forgotten entirely, staring first at the black and gray uniform of the Imperial Flight Academy, and finally at his face. For several moments, she waited for his features to make sense-- it was only when he smiled, something of a smirk really, that she recognized him. "My lords," she exclaimed, "Phetyr, is that you?"

Hisae's older brother nodded, doffing his cap as he bowed to both girls. "Hard to believe, huh?"

"That's one way to put it," Yalith said numbly, trying to reconcile the clean-cut image of officer in training with the long haired scamp who used to tease Hisae, and occasionally took both girls on expeditions to the District Gardens. "It's been ages."

"Three years," Phetyr said, ruffling Hisae's hair. She batted at his hand with annoyance. Her brother paid her no mind, his gaze lingering on Yalith.

"I almost didn't recognize you," Yalith laughed at herself. "It was that nickname-- Hibi. You're the only one who could call Hisae that and live to see another sunrise."

"He may not, this time," Hisae grumbled, "honestly, Phe, I'm not five!"

"I'm not the only one who's changed," Phetyr murmured. "You've certainly grown, my lady." He took her hand, though Yalith managed to turn the action into a shake, instead of the kiss he seemed to intend. A chill snake of discomfort wound its way down her spine, so that she held herself stiffly.

("So have you, my lady. Grown more beautiful, I mean." Earnest eyes, so truthful but embarrassed, the eyes of a boy she'd known in the body of a stranger. "For a senator, I mean." And the heat of her blush, under his reverent gaze, was still very real.)

Yalith's cheeks remained pale and bloodless under Phetyr's scrutiny, because it simply wasn't the same.

"The Astronavigation class?" Yalith asked, turning helplessly towards Hisae. "Isn't this the last year they're allowing girls to participate?"

"Yes!" Hisae said smacking her fist in her palm. "I didn't even ask mother-- I was just saying to Phe that I wanted to take it, and she was all up in arms about what a waste of time and money it was, how I should be focusing on becoming more cultured, how she couldn't figure out why-- if I was going to insist on behaving this way-- she couldn't have had two sons." The last part was said bitterly, with a sour but resigned twist to Hisae's lips.

Yalith reached out and put a hand on her friend's shoulder. "If it makes you feel better, I like you much better as a girl."

"Should have been born earlier," Phetyr said indulgently. "Nowadays, you girls don't have to worry about such things. Everything is becoming much more civilized."

"Is that so?" Yalith asked, utterly without inflection.

"It's not that I have to or not," Hisae said, clearly irked, "it's that I want to. I want to fly and learn marksmanship. For Sith's sake, Phetyr, I've always been a better shot than you."

"Well," he said-- and it seemed to Yalith that his brotherly smile was somehow smug, "If women were meant to be in the army, the Emperor would have allowed it, don't you think. The Emperor's wisdom prevails." Hisae's sunlight-emerald gaze flashed over at Yalith-- the other girl held it and said nothing, hand fisted in her skirt. "Well, don't everyone rush to agree with me at once," Phetyr laughed, and his joviality didn't quite ring true.

"Who can add to a statement like that?" Yalith murmured.

"Look," Phetyr continued, suddenly seemingly uncomfortable under Yalith's stormy gaze. "I have some papers I need to run up to the Life Administration Office-- I go back to the Academy half past twelfth bell tonight, but I'll be back beforehand for dinner." He clapped Hisae on the back, before saying, "Feel free to join us, eh, Yalith?"

"We'll have to see," Yalith compromised, "I'm never certain what my nurses will and won't allow."

"Well, you two stay out of trouble," he advised. "Keep your noses clean, and all that."

"Clean enough to eat off of," Yalith said with a smile she didn't quite feel.

Quite suddenly, Phetyr winked, his smile more than friendly. "Don't tempt me." Fighting strongly to keep the distaste off her face, Yalith didn't see Hisae's quick movement-- only its result. Though her brother was at least a head taller than she, Hisae was lithe, with honest energy and the element of surprise. Her fist hit Phetyr square in the arm-- not hard enough to be called malicious, but certainly not playful-- and he actually stumbled, clearly taken aback.

"Just stop," Hisae said darkly, quickly linking arms with Yalith. Feeling her relief as a physical sensation, the other girl did not resist-- they moved together down the hallway, ignoring Phetyr's calls.

"I'm so sorry," Hisae said once they were safely in the lift. "Really, Yali, I am."

"It's alright," Yalith assured her. "Don't worry about it."

The other girl sighed, gaze drifting past the glass lift walls. "I was so excited that he was coming home, you know? I was really looking forward to it. And at first things were pretty great. Like old times." She laughed a little, but it was not a happy sound, "I know I'm never gonna get to be a pilot or a marksman, not now, but when he was telling me about the training, it felt a little like I was there." Yalith squeezed her friend's hand, encouragingly. "It's funny," the other girl shrugged, "I mean, I'm the one who wants to be a soldier, but you, Yali-- you're the one who's really strong."

"Hisae, I'm not--"

"No, you are." The darker girl looked her friend in the eye. "I know I yell at you sometimes for being so critical of the Empire-- I don't always do it 'cause I disagree with you. Sometimes, a lot of the time, I do it 'cause I'm scared."

"You think I'm not?" Yalith asked, reaching up to brush a lock of Hisae's hair behind her ear. "Hisae, I'm scared all the time."

"I know-- or, lately, I've started noticing," Hisae admitted, "but you don't let it matter. You don't let it stop you." She looked away, "Phetyr's changed so much-- the more I talked to him, the more I realized it. He treats me like I can't do anything for myself. It's as if I'm not a real person. He's still my brother and I'll always love him, but..." she shivered, "I'm not all that sure I like him, anymore."

"I'm so sorry, Hisae," Yalith murmured, groping for words. "I wish there was something I could do." Hisae nodded curtly, clearly trying to keep her tears at bay, and Yalith allowed a comfortable silence to descend as they made their way out of the building. It wasn't until they were all the way at the other end of the street that Hisae spoke, so quietly it first seemed at one with the stillness.

"Are you okay?" she asked, studying Yalith closely. "When I saw you yesterday..."

"Yeah," Yalith pursed her lips. "I'm... I'm not sure. Still standing, I guess."

"Want to tell me about it?" Hisae offered with a sweep of her arm, "I cry on your shoulder, you cry on mine?"

"Thank you," the other girl said sincerely. She glanced around the busy walkway. "Not here."

"No," Hisae agreed, grabbing for Yalith's chrono and glancing at the display. "We have a half an hour before the train. I guess that says something for dramatic exits. Come on, let's get some redburst cakes-- my treat!"


End file.
